Curiosity, Satisfaction
by spazzo-sama
Summary: When two people decide to move in together, it's a big step in their relationship. So it was for Cloud and Sephiroth. The only problem? They forgot to tell their kids. All fifteen of them.
1. Love, Hate—Same Thing

Hey all! JJ here, back with... a random thing that's been bothering her for months.

Yes, yes, I know. I haven't updated _Of Books and Ice Cubes_ yet. I'm sorry! (hides)

But at about 2 AM a couple weeks ago, a little plot bunny scampered out of the dark recesses of my mind and smacked me with its little plot bunny mallet. Thusly, I had to write this.

Between this, _OBaIC_, Final Fantasy XII, (BALTHIER! SQUEE!) and general insanity (straight A's on my 1st semester report card! YOSH!), I haven't been able to write the darn update. So you'll all just have to make do with this instead.

Besides, I'm trying to work some R/S into Chapter 8, but… you didn't hear that from me. Or maybe you did. (shifty eyes)

Also, in case you care, this is a **slash** fic, people. If you don't like it, go away, and I don't want to see your reviews in my inbox tomorrow morning.

Have fun! (waves)

* * *

**Curiosity Killed the Cat—**

**Then Satisfaction Brought Him Back **

(Curiosity, Satisfaction)

Prologue: Love, Hate—Same Thing

There are many, many stupid, stupid, _stupid_ clichés about love.

Love is blind.

The course of true love never runs smooth.

Well, applying my own knowledge here, I have to say that Love isn't just blind: she's _nuts_. Heck, she's not just Love, she's the patron saint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. No wonder they're doing so well.

And about that "course of true love" thing? Well, that's actually kind of accurate. Only replace the "never runs smooth" with "about as fun as a frontal lobotomy without anesthesia" and you've got a better picture. Or, replace "never runs smooth" with "as delicate as a train wreck." That could work too.

But, whatever you might think, there's one thing about Love that can't be denied.

Love's evil, ain't she?

But enough about my views of the world.

Now, you might ask, what business does a girl who hasn't even seen her thirteenth birthday have with love?

Well, I never really had any business with her in the first place. If you want to know, you'll have to ask my brothers.

Or maybe I can just tell you.

You see, before this whole saga began, I was still into what I have officially dubbed the "Disney Princess" version of love. You know: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall madly in love with each other upon first glance, girl gets kidnapped by force of evil, boy saves girl, and then boy marries girl before they even share their first kiss. And heaven forbid anything else be factored into the equation. You know the ideal—every little girl believes in it.

And then they're scarred for life when they realize that no, life does not work that way.

Of course, I had a slightly warped version of this ideal, having a very single, very gay dad. So, more often then not, I'd find a more suitable male partner for the prince out of a whole host of background characters, having decided that the princess was boring as heck and needed to find a few hobbies. Dad found this hilarious, as did the rest of my siblings—all eight of them.

I could never really live up to Demyx's methods of raising hell though. When he was in fifth grade, his class had a "Health and the Human Body" unit. This basically translated to "everything you never wanted to know, complete with detailed diagrams and a clear explanation of how the stork does not deliver babies in the dead of night."

Everyone has to have it at some point—"Now Timmy, when a mommy and daddy love each other very much…"

Oh please.

But little Demyx, having already been incorrigibly corrupted (by who? no one knows), raised his hand and asked the teacher how men were supposed to "do it."

The teacher fainted, and a bunch of the other kids went home and told the story to their parents; who, as the story goes, burst into hysterical unrestrained laughter and explained it all.

Now, had we lived anywhere else but Traverse Town, Demyx would have been in big trouble—and dad would have too. But we lived in Traverse Town, and people had already stopped caring about that sort of thing. Besides, as Demyx later told me when I was old enough to understand, "the teacher was a yaoi fangirl anyway."

This, of course, prompted another round of questioning, before Demyx let slip he'd found four copies of various well-known shonen-ai mangas in her bag. How did Demyx know they were shonen-ai mangas? Well, we all figured that a ten-year-old Demyx was not to be underestimated, and dropped the matter.

Anyway, I grew up with a pretty twisted view on true love, but even with all of that I still believed in that "love at first sight" nonsense—for a while, anyway. Well, maybe it isn't entirely nonsense—it has to work for some people. You know, all those Disney Princesses that we've got running around nowadays. No wonder the divorce rate is so high—sure, I'd be flattered if some guy rescued me from the forces of evil (or a dragon, that's much more cliché)—but _marry_ the guy? Are you _insane_?

But what does this have to do with anything?

Well, the saga began when all our lives changed in one fell swoop—new town, new house, new school, new friends, new everything. Including new family members, which pissed us all off.

But when we got there, there were certain people my brothers simply did not get along with. This wasn't entirely surprising—Demyx gets on_ everyone's_ nerves at some point, whether he tries to or not—but it was still a little bizarre to watch them all come home seething every day. Not seething as in angry—seething as in competely, utterly deranged and most likely homicidal.

So, I went about my life, with the idea that this was completely normal and that everything would be fine in the end.

Then Love reared her ugly little head, and then everything went to hell.

It was then that I noticed people were behaving rather weirdly. Demyx, for example, was acting like a hormonal fourteen-year-old girl—he'd come home and go upstairs and we'd hear him _crying_. All of the ice cream vanished from the freezer in a matter of days, along with the Twinkies, Ho-Hos, cupcakes, and the weird sugar sludge cereal that had been sitting in the cupboard for only god knew how long. I didn't have the faintest clue what was going on, but then dad cleared all of my confusion—"he's fallen hard for someone."

That was when the _Twilight Zone_ music began playing and my jaw basically fell four feet to the floor.

My other brothers had the same problem too—within weeks, they were all alternately insanely happy or hysterically _un_happy (God save the person who speaks to a hormonal Demyx on a sugar binge) and all comfort food vanished from the house within weeks. Usually, once a week we ended up going to the grocery store to restock on ice cream and Twinkies. Even with all that comfort food, though, they were still pretty miserable. Pretty soon, the youngest of us learned to tiptoe when Sora locked the door, and to flee about fifty miles whenever Roxas came home beet red and looking like his head was about to detach from his neck and fly into the stratosphere.

I learned a lot about Love during that period of time—she's an evil, evil witch, who brings nothing but pain and suffering to the masses of lovestruck idiots who haven't a snowball's chance in hell at wooing that special someone. Coincidentally, I appear to be related to many of these lovestruck idiots. Ahh, fate. She's a nasty witch too.

But, to my eternal amazement, none of them made any attempt to get out of evil's embrace. It turns out when you fall for someone, you fall hard, and there isn't a safety net in the world that can stop you.

That sounds oddly morbid, doesn't it? Like one of those falling dreams.

But love came eventually; despite everything it took to make it happen. And then my brothers were some of the happiest people in the entire world. I doubt even a nuclear war could keep them from smiling like the idiots they are. Despite how ridiculous and painful the path to love was, it still made them the happiest whack jobs on the face of the planet.

Disney thinks they've defined true love, but I've got another definition for you.

Love isn't something that happens immediately. It's only love when you would go to hell and back to get the other person to love you back—and even if you start out miserable as anything, you end up the happiest you've ever been in your entire life.

Deep, huh? That's what happens when you spend most of an entire school year just observing. Try it sometime.

And what did I do with these observations? Well, we were supposed to write an end-of-the year paper on what we had learned outside of school that year. Most people turned in nice little paragraph things that the teacher had been expecting. Me, I hauled a ten-page paper on my theories on Love and her psychological influences, as well as a journal detailing the symptoms of my various 'specimens'.  
I love watching peoples' eyes twitch.

Turns out siblings really _are_ good for something. Who would have thought it?

Just don't write a paper on them. It's practically a guaranteed one-way ticket to the school psychologist.

* * *

Ahh, she's a beaut, ain't she? 

This is an experiment, really. I've had the idea bouncing around in my brain for a while now, and I hadn't really known what to do with it up until now.

Also, before you ask, the story WILL NOT be in first person. I usually don't write in first person, but I thought it might work here. This is a prologue, people. A prologue. Do not expect major plot elements. Just wait.

Oh, by the way—the official title is Curiosity, Satisfaction. In case you didn't notice, it's short for Curiosity Killed the Cat—Then Satisfaction Brought Him Back.

And again, this is a **slash** fic. Don't blame me, I've left warnings all over the place.

Now go! Frisk like little captive lambkins!


	2. Insert Loud Explosion Here

Hello! (prances into the room and trips on a bug)

Welcome to… chapter… ONE! Okay, so that wasn't exactly… dramatic.

But, I'm flattered by what all… nine… of you said in your reviews. Please, please, review! (grovels)

Reviews are the food that makes me happiest! Except for chocolate… nothing beats that.

* * *

**Curiosity Killed the Cat—**

**Then Satisfaction Brought Him Back**

**(Curiosity, Satisfaction)**

Chapter One: Insert Loud Explosion Here

"Do you even want to go to this party?" Zexion asked lazily, briefly glancing up from his book.

"Not really," Sephiroth replied, fastening the clasp on his coat.

"So why are you going?" Zexion asked, idly turning the page.

"Because people are expecting me to. It's a high school reunion, after all."

"So you haven't seen these people in twenty years. So what? It's not like you actually liked many of them, anyway."

Sephiroth sighed, yanking on one boot. "I liked a few people, but I doubt that I'll see them there."

Zexion raised an eyebrow. "So you're _hoping_ that you'll see someone there. I thought that might be it."

Sephiroth groaned. "You just _had_to decide that psychology was your true calling."

"It's more of a hobby, really. Now, who is it?"

"I bet I know," Riku said, wandering into the room with a smirk on his face. "That guy—your ex-boyfriend, right?"

"That's none of your business," Sephiroth retorted calmly.

"Oh?" Riku asked, smirk widening. "So that's _not_ why you chose the leather outfit then?"

"Once again, Riku, that's none of your business," Sephiroth said, displaying remarkable restraint that few people on the planet possessed. "Have you seen your brothers anywhere?"

"Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo? Last I checked, they were upstairs playing with Fuu."

"Chaos," Fuu commented tiredly from behind Riku. The other three interpreted this single word to mean "I've just escaped from the hall closet, Kadaj has thought up some ridiculous scheme involving jet fuel and a toilet plunger, Loz figured out how to rewire the upstairs electrical system, and Yazoo just set the neighbors' cat on fire."

Now, anyone who didn't live with Fuu or talk to her on a daily basis probably wouldn't get _nearly_ as much out of that one word as Sephiroth, Zexion, and Riku did. But the three of them knew her very well. Unfortunately, they also knew Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo very well.

Sephiroth groaned. "I distinctly remember telling Yazoo he wasn't allowed to have matches after he cremated that bush in the front yard." He looked over at his only daughter. "You couldn't have done anything to stop them?"

"Bound," Fuu replied in the same deadpan voice that she always used. The other three interpreted this to mean "I couldn't do anything because they locked me in a closet with my arms tied behind my back, and I only escaped because Loz sucks at knot-tying and I was able to pick the lock from the inside. Oh, and they stole my copy of Phoenix Wright, and I want it back _now_."

"Well, now I'm almost happy to be leaving," Sephiroth muttered, striding over to the door, his three oldest children following. Thirty seconds and one loud bellow of "Kadaj! Loz! Yazoo! Get down here now!" they were joined by the three younger family members.

"Listen," Sephiroth told them all, seriously. "I'm going to head out now. I'm not exactly sure when I'll be back, but until I do get back, Zexion is in charge, and I want you all to behave!"

Zexion groaned inwardly as Kadaj, the youngest and most unpredictable of the three misfits, shot him a calculating look. Before their father returned, he'd probably be stripped naked, dyed pink, electrocuted, set on fire, soaked in meat, handed over to the neighborhood dogs as a chew toy, and finally tied to a chair and forced to watch Yazoo set his collection of encyclopedias ablaze while cackling maniacally.

There were some days when he just hated his little brothers. This was definitely one of them. Zexion briefly contemplated barricading himself in his room, but discarded the idea as foolish after remembering that, currently, nothing existed in the universe that Loz couldn't destroy.

He longed for the days when the three of them had been in diapers. Good times, good times.

As if he had noticed the look, Sephiroth continued, saying, "And don't do anything too stupid while I'm gone. I'd like to come back and find everyone and everything in one piece."

He moved along the line, giving them all a kiss on the forehead, even Zexion and Riku. "Now be safe—and by that, I mean don't die while I'm gone."

And with those inspiring words, Sephiroth left, the door slamming in his wake. The six siblings stared at each other.

Kadaj grinned.

Zexion contemplated fleeing for his life.

* * *

Several miles away in Traverse Town, a similar scene was occurring at the home of one Cloud Strife, mechanic, delivery guy, and sword fighting master extraordinaire. He, like Sephiroth, was on his way to his twentieth high school reunion. Only he, unlike Sephiroth, had no idea where his clean clothes were, because they had all fallen to the powers of food, paint, grease, blood, and only god knew what other kinds of stains. So, in a fit of desperation, Cloud pulled out the outfit that Sora had dubbed his "kickass hero uniform" complete with boots, black pants that he assumed were some kind of leather, and zip-up sleeveless sweater-shirt thing.

Crisis avoided, he moved on to his second most pressing crisis: his car keys were, once again, missing. Fifteen minutes and various overturned belongings later, he discovered his keys in the bottom of the fish tank.

Fifteen minutes _later_, he decided that Demyx's fish weren't guppies; they were baby piranhas that seemed to be addicted to the taste of human flesh.

And that was how Demyx himself found Cloud: wet, tired, annoyed, arm stuck in the fish tank with guppies attacking every inch of him they could reach. So Demyx did what any dutiful, loving son would do: he burst into hysterical, unrestrained laughter.

"What the hell," he asked between gasps, "are you doing?"

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Someone put my motorcycle keys in the fishtank."

Demyx raised an eyebrow. "Any idea as to the identity of the culprit?"

"Culprits, in the plural. I think the triplets were screwing around again."

Demyx laughed. "Rikku, Yuna, and Paine are a handful, aren't they?"

"A handful?" Cloud asked incredulously, extricating his keys from the fishtank. "Sometimes I'm absolutely convinced that those three are the spawn of Satan himself."

"I'm pretty sure that everyone in Traverse Town has thought that at some point. I mean, they're only seven, and they've caused more trouble than the rest of us combined!" Sora commented, strolling into the living room with one of his favorite ice cream bars.

"Something which has caused me great distress over the years," Cloud commented dryly.

"So what's with the kickass hero outfit?" Sora asked, smirking. "Trying to impress someone at this big high school reunion of yours?"

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Stop calling it that! And no, I'm not trying to impress anyone. I just didn't have anything else to wear!"

"How does that work?" Demyx wondered aloud.

"Let's see," Cloud said sarcastically. "There's the peanut butter and jelly stains, the grass stains, the grease stains from fixing Fenrir last week, the fake blood from the day Denzel decided to dump a bucket of it on my head, and various stains that I do not know, and do not wish to know, the source of. Some days I'm torn between washing my clothes or just giving up and burning them."

"What's this about burning clothes?" Roxas, Sora's nearly identical twin asked, wandering aimlessly into the room. He raised an eyebrow at Cloud's appearance. "Wow. You look…"

"Single," Sora supplied his twin.

"I was going to say he was trying to impress someone. But thanks, Sora."

"Actually, I'd say he looks about as straight as a curly fry," Demyx said thoughtfully.

"He _is_ as straight as a curly fry," Sora and Roxas said at the same time.

"Okay. Before you all get into an in-depth discussion on my sexuality, I think I'll leave," Cloud muttered, walking over to the foot of the stairs. "Hey guys! Can you come down here for a minute?"

With a noise that sounded like a herd of stampeding elephants, the remaining Strifes thundered down the stairs. Cloud took a quick head count to make sure he had them all. There was Naminé's head of blond hair; the twins, Denzel and Marlene; and the triplets, Rikku, Yuna, and Paine. Added to Demyx, Roxas, and Sora, that made nine. Good. That meant that everyone was present and accounted for, and no one had found his or her way into the air ducts. Again.

But, he noted with some degree of suspicion, Paine appeared to be hiding something behind her back. It was, officially, the proverbial "time to go."

So that was what he set out to achieve.

"Okay," he said, looking at each of them. "Demyx will be in charge until I get back. No, Paine, this does not give you license to kill him. And if the chocobos die while I'm gone, I will know why. So don't do anything stupid."

The triplets saluted. Cloud moved quickly to the front door. Now would be about the time for whatever prank Paine had planted to take effect.

"Hey, dad?" Demyx called as the door closed.

Cloud poked his head back through the door. "Yeah?"

"Don't do anything stupid."

Cloud grinned, and the door slammed shut.

Sora turned to Demyx. "Did you ever tell him that those weren't his keys?"

"Nope," Demyx said, grinning. "Paine's got them."

"AND WOULD ONE OF YOU GIVE ME BACK MY KEYS?" Cloud screamed from outside.

"Je vous ai dits que ça ne marche pas," Naminé said, sighing.

"English please, Naminé," Roxas groaned.

"I told you that wouldn't work."

* * *

Having reclaimed his keys to his beloved Fenrir from his littlest spawn of Satan (there was no way he would drive the van to his high school reunion) he made the drive with relatively little incident. Sure, his choice of outfit—namely the weird half-coat thing that he'd worn with it—was garnering a few stares. But it wasn't really causing him too much trouble.

The trouble really started when he got to the party venue. He made it three steps through the doorway before a large black-and-tan blur latched itself around his neck.

"Cloudster!" Yuffie squealed happily. "You made it!"

Cloud winced. The decibel level a happy Yuffie was able to achieve was positively alarming. That, and he now had the beginnings of a splitting headache.

"Yuffie," another voice chided gently. "You're strangling him. Let go, would you?"

Yuffie obligingly unwrapped her arms. Cloud gratefully massaged his aching throat. "Thanks Aerith," he said gratefully to the young woman in front of him. "You're a life saver."

"That's my job," she replied, smiling. "It has been for years."

"And you're just as pink as ever."

Aerith flushed. "And I'm sure that your outfit is_so _much better."

Cloud groaned. "It was the only thing that didn't have unknown stains all over it."

"Ah. Fake blood again?"

"Of course. It's Denzel's prank of choice. One of these days, I'll remember to look up before stepping through a doorway."

"So," Yuffie asked cheerfully, "how are the little hellions?"

"Uncontrollable, as always," Cloud replied. "Earlier Paine threw my keys in the fishtank, only... they weren't really my keys. Somehow. I left Demyx in charge while I'm gone."

"Cloudster, you do realize that he'll probably dead by morning?" Yuffie asked, in a tone that indicated she was merely stating the facts of the matter.

"Which is why I'm not there right now. Sometimes I feel like the guardian deities of parenting duties are raining misfortune on my head for having so many kids."

Aerith shook her head. "Did you have any clue what you were in for? I mean, kids are fine, but _nine_ of them?"

"Demyx, Sora, Roxas, and Naminé can take care of themselves. They're old enough now."

Aerith rolled her eyes. "Naminé speaks in French half the time, so no one has any clue as to what she's saying. Where'd she even learn French, anyway?"

"Ah, who cares?" Yuffie chirped. "This is a party! Go on, get drunk. Hey, I think I saw your ex-boyfriend around here somewhere."

Cloud blinked. "Sephiroth's here? This doesn't sound like his kind of thing."

Yuffie shrugged. "I saw what I saw. Plus, not too many people have waist length silver hair."

"Unless it's one of his crazy fangirls in a wig and stilts," a new voice added. "Hey Cloud. How are the brats? And… what the hell are you wearing?"

"Hi Tifa," Cloud said. "And the brats are the reason I'm wearing this."

"Fake blood?" Tifa asked, grinning.

"How do you all know that?"

"We were there," the three women chorused. Cloud sighed.

"Here," Tifa said, turning him to the right. "The bar's that way."

"This'll be fun. I haven't had alcohol since The Great Drunken Chocobo Rampage." This pronouncement received blank looks from all three women, so Cloud rolled his eyes and continued. "I haven't had alcohol in the house ever since Rikku got the chocobos drunk. I also learned the same lesson after the chocobos ate bread dough Marlene set out to rise."

Tifa rolled her eyes and pointed Cloud in the general direction of the bar. "Go on, Cloudie. Forget the kids, and the fact that Demyx has probably been sacrificed to some pagan god by now. Go… fly away, Cloudie, fly away."

Cloud looked at Tifa. "How many beers have you had?"

"A few."

"Dozen," Yuffie added.

"Right," Cloud muttered, wandering off in the direction Tifa had pointed him in, with the intention of getting a nice soda and then going to sit in a corner with said soda until Tifa sobered up a bit.

These plans, like so many others before them, promptly evaporated when he slammed into someone's black-leather-clad chest.

"Sorry," he muttered hastily, scrambling backwards.

"Sorry," the person he'd crashed into replied. There was a pause, and then—"Cloud?"

Cloud froze. He knew that voice. He looked up hesitantly. And there, staring him straight in the face, was Sephiroth Amami. His ex-boyfriend. Who, his mind informed him rather smugly, looked just like he did during their senior year in high school.

Cloud was now pretty much certain that his face was a very unattractive shade of tomato red.

Sephiroth, meanwhile, was still attempting to wrap his mind around the concept that Cloud Strife had just walked into him and was now blushing prettily. Silently, Sephiroth thanked whoever was watching for sending him the one person that he wanted to see.

Someone was, in fact, watching. Only said person was in no way divine and actually had no idea what was going on. Zack Fair simply sighed and wondered what would happen now. It wasn't every day that one's best friend literally ran into their ex-boyfriend.

Of course, just to ruin Zack's perfect mood, Jack Sparrow staggered past with a bottle of rum, singing drunkenly as he staggered around the room. "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me… WELL I DON'T CARE, HANG THE LOT OF THEM, WILL YOU?"

Zack jumped.

Cloud and Sephiroth winced as they heard Jack start a new song—something about rum and really bad eggs.

It was then that Cloud unknowingly made a decision that would cause him much undue pain and strife—no pun intended—over the next several months.

"Do you want to go inside? Get away from Jack for a bit?" Cloud asked.

Sephiroth blinked.

"There's a good view out of the river out on the deck," he continued. _Good god,_ he thought. _I'm acting like such a sap!_

To his eternal relief, Sephiroth nodded and motioned to the doorway that appeared to lead out onto the deck.

_Thank god. I thought he was just going to stand there like a statue._

Fortunately, there _was_ a good view from the deck.

Now, Cloud wasn't usually one to appreciate a beautiful orange sunset. This was because they had a tendency to remind him of explosions. Big, fiery explosions.

Now, Cloud liked fiery explosions as much as the next Mythbusters fangirl. Setting things on fire is fun, dammit!

However, after the oven was consumed in a massive fireball that then set the curtains on fire, which coincided perfectly with a spectacular explosion that launched the water heater outside in the shed three hundred feet into the air (it was rumored to have blown itself into the next county—they never did find it), Cloud decided he didn't like explosions quite so much.

Or sunsets.

But since talking to Sephiroth was like pulling teeth—sans anesthesia with a pair of giant rusty pliers—Cloud decided it would be easier to pretend he was contemplating the sunset. And, at the risk of sounding like a complete and total sap, he decided to try talking to Sephiroth again.

"What does it remind you of?"

There was a pause.

"Electrical fires."

Cloud blinked. "What?"

"Loz tried to rewire the fuse box one day and just managed to set the entire thing on fire. How about you?"

"Big fiery explosions and flying water heaters."

"And what traumatic event might that be?"

"My kids managed to blow the oven up, set the curtains on fire, and send the water heater into low orbit."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow. "You have kids?"

"Don't you?" Cloud retorted. "I assume this Loz is one of them. So who's the lucky woman?"

"She's dead," Sephiroth said roughly, turning back to the railing. "She died when our youngest was five."

Cloud could feel his ego deflating. "...sorry. So you said your _youngest_. How many kids do you have?"

Sephiroth suppressed a wince.

"Six."

Cloud burst out laughing. "Six? I bet that really hasn't helped you get a date now has it?"

Sephiroth shook his head, smiling ever-so-slightly. "Of course it's been a problem. But they're my kids, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world."

"Same here. They're insane and a right pain in the ass, but you still have to love them."

Sephiroth turned to look at him again. "You said you had kids as well. How many kids do you have?"

Cloud took a deep breath.

"Nine."

Sephiroth blinked, and one eyebrow shot so far skyward it appeared to bypass his forehead altogether and head straight for the International Space Station. "You have nine kids? You must have kept your wife busy."

Cloud shook his head. "I'm not married. I'm not even dating anybody. They're all adopted."

"How on earth did you get into adoption?"

"In the beginning, I wasn't interested at all. Having a big family wasn't originally the plan. I was a foster parent though, for a while. Then I took Demyx in, and… things went from there. Now I have a set of triplets, two sets of twins, and two others. Things are a bit… chaotic, to say the least, but we make it work."

"It sounds a lot like my house. I don't have any twins, but I do have an Unholy Trinity and a daughter who speaks in one or two word sentences."

Cloud grinned, though 'Inner Cloud' was still in a state of Sephiroth-induced shock.

_He's… speaking? What the hell?_

Despite these rantings from the tiny little voice in his brain, he continued. "I have a daughter who speaks in French every other sentence, and no one really knows where she learned it."

Sephiroth was silent for a few minutes, staring out over the water.

'Inner Cloud' heaved a sigh of relief. _He's not speaking anymore! The world is back to normal!_

"Why did we ever break up?" he asked quietly.

Cloud's head snapped around so fast he was pretty sure that he'd managed to snap his neck. "What?"

"You heard me. Why did we ever break up?"

Cloud sighed. "We went over this a million times when we actually broke up. We were going to colleges in different cities that were too far apart, and we didn't want to deal with the stress of carrying out a long-distance relationship when we both know we'd probably never see each other again."

Sephiroth shook his head. "How did I ever go through with that?" he asked no one in particular.

Cloud turned beet red and discovered a whole new meaning to the term 'silence is golden.'

* * *

Fifty feet away, Zack had joined up with Aerith, Tifa, and Yuffie, and the four were currently watching the proceedings with interest.

"I told you I saw Sephiroth here!" Yuffie crowed happily. She held out her hand. "Come on, pay up!"

The other three let out a collective groan and reached for their wallets. "Yuffie," Tifa growled, "one of these days, I'll—"

"It was a fair bet!" Yuffie chirped, cutting her off midsentence.

Aerith sighed. "Tifa, next time, don't bet against Yuffie. She always wins."

"Hey! Take your own advice!"

Aerith fumed. Zack forestalled potential nuclear war by putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Honey, Tifa's right."

Aerith gave him a look that said, in no uncertain terms, 'you, my friend, are sleeping on the couch for the next thousand years and four days.' Zack winced. And then Yuffie shrieked so loudly he was sure his eardrums had ruptured.

Yuffie seized Aerith's wrist in a vice grip and spun her around to look back out the window.

Aerith froze. Zack froze. Tifa choked, spraying beer everywhere. Three jaws hit the floor. Yuffie just grinned as though she'd been expecting it—knowing her, she probably had.

"Yuffie," Tifa said slowly, "are they—?"

"Kissing?" Yuffie asked cheerily. "Yep!"

She held out both hands once more. The other three groaned and reached for their wallets.

* * *

Outside, a very, very happy Cloud was completely unaware of Yuffie's unofficial (and probably illegal in most cities) betting ring. 'Inner Cloud' was having a field day.

_I'm kissing Sephiroth. Me. Kissing the still very sexy, formerly married Sephiroth. Who has six kids. He's still a really great kisser. Oh god, the kids are going to kill me._

Then, of course, Sephiroth pulled him in closer, and Cloud discovered that he was no longer capable of any form of conscious thought processes.

* * *

Aerith blinked. "Wow. They move quickly."

Yuffie slung an arm around her shoulder. "Ahh, they were made for each other."

Tifa looked slightly repulsed. "It looks like Sephiroth's _eating_ him. Is that normal in most relationships?"

Zack shook his head. "It's Cloud and Sephiroth. Nothing's ever normal with those two."

Jack chose that moment to fall down the stairs, squawking like a drunken parrot.

* * *

Cursing slightly, Cloud pulled into the driveway.

3 AM. He was three hours late. If he were lucky, the kids would be in bed. Alas, this was not to be.

He'd made it halfway across the front hall when someone cleared their throat. Loudly.

"AHEM!" It was Demyx. Cloud turned to face him,_almost_ dreading the ensuing conversation.

A split second later, he wished he'd thought to wear earplugs as Demyx's shriek maxed out the decibel meter and subsequently shattered it, along with his eardrums.

"Where have you _been_?" Demyx wailed. Cloud swore he saw the mirror waver.

"Out?" he replied hesitantly, resisting the urge to whimper.

"You were supposed to be back here _three hours ago_!"

Cloud winced. "Demyx, I can take care of myself—"

"_The triplets were frantic_!"

"Demyx—"

"Marlene and Denzel were wondering what happened to you!"

"Demyx—"

"Naminé, Sora, Roxas and I were seriously considering the possibility you'd been whacked by a serial killer!"

"Demyx—"

"_We bolted all the doors and windows and made a weapons cache_!"

"Demyx," Cloud said in the tone that angry parents use when all hell is about to break loose, "shut it."

Demyx—who was wise enough not to argue when Cloud used "the tone"—shut it.

"First," Cloud said, "you are not my mother. Or father. Or legal guardian. Second, you probably woke up everyone in the house with that outburst. And third," he grinned, "yell a bit louder next time. I think there's still a few people in Atlantica who didn't hear you."

"Amen to that," Sora and Roxas said sleepily, staggering into the room. "Geez Dem. You're lucky the triplets and the twins can sleep through a hurricane."

Cloud's eye twitched. There were times he wondered if Sora and Roxas knew exactly what the other was thinking. This was one of those times.

"Mon dieu!" a rather sleepy and peeved Naminé exclaimed, joining them. "C'est trois heures du matin! Est-ce qu'on peut dormir maintenant?" Naminé asked, in the way that pissed-off sleepy people do. And then she spotted Cloud.

"Et vous! Où étiez-vous?" she all but screamed.

The other four smacked their foreheads.

"Naminé. Please. English," Sora and Roxas muttered.

Naminé rolled her eyes. "Honestly. Just learn French, would you?" I just asked where dad had been, and before that I said that it was three in the morning and could we all just _go back to sleep_?"

"I second that motion," Cloud said, making a beeline for the stairs. Naminé stepped in front of him in a rather pathetic imitation of a wall. "Ah-ah-ah. Where were you?"

"Honestly, is the Spanish Inquisition really necessary, here?"

Nods all around.

Cloud sighed. "Fine. If you really must know… I was with someone."

"EEEEEEEUUUUUUURGH?"

Why "EEEEEEEUUUUUUURGH?" you ask? Well, that's the general sound teenagers make when their father—who hasn't had a date in somewhere around eighteen to twenty years—announces he's met someone. Hence the long, drawn out sound that sounds something akin to a deflating balloon.

* * *

And thus chapter one comes to a brilliantly written close. Oh, wait. That's just me sitting on my pedestal. Again.

Well, I'd like to hear what you all think. And I'm going for humor here, people. And romance, but most of that comes later as soon as I figure out how to write… romantic scenes. Dear god, I should not be writing romance. (mutters) Never even had a stupid schoolgirl crush…

Erm… moving on, I'd love to hear what you all think. Really. I'm completely serious. Seriously. (wheedles) I'll give you _plushies_…


	3. Because Life Just Works That Way

Thank you for all of your responses last chapter! I didn't think people would like this so much!

Man… this is setting up to be an epic fic, considering the length of this chapter. And, just to scare you even further, this chapter is eleven pages long in 9 pt, 1.5 spaced Verdana font. It's pretty small. And over 5000 words long. That's longer than any paper I've ever written for school.

Oh, and just as a little challenge for you all—can you find all of the Phoenix Wright references in here? First one to get them all gets a cookie!

…has anyone ever noticed that Fuu kinda looks like Franziska vonKarma… without the whip?

**Disclaimer**: I once tried to buy the rights to Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy, but it turned out that all of the money I had amounted to eleven dollars and twenty cents—all in change I found in the couch.

* * *

**Curiosity Killed the Cat****—**

**Then Satisfaction Brought Him Back**

**(Curiosity, Satisfaction)**

Chapter Two: Because Life Just Works That Way

Zexion Amami was peeved. Very, very peeved.

Why was Zexion Amami peeved?

Well, when you keep getting left in charge of your five younger siblings while your father's out on a date, you tend to get a little peeved. Especially if all you want to do is find a nice book and read it _without_ being tortured almost into insanity.

But fate was not kind to Zexion Amami, and so it was that on this lovely Friday evening, he was standing amid the wreckage of what had once been a rather elegant living room, holding Kadaj up in the air by his ankle with one hand while fending off Loz and Yazoo with a broken broom handle.

Yes, Zexion Amami was peeved. Riku's arrival—and the shriek of laughter that came with it—didn't help either.

"Don't just stand there!" Zexion growled. "Grab a stick and start whacking!"

Riku eyed Zexion and the other three. Then he shook his head. "Sorry, Zexy. You're on your own for this mission."

"Idiocy," said Fuu from behind Riku. Of course, everyone knew she meant "Zexion, you foolishly foolish fool! This is your own foolish fault. _Fool!_"

Zexion decided she'd make a very effective prosecutor if she ever learned to speak properly. Of course, he dreaded the day she actually used the word fool five times in one sentence.

* * *

Miles away in a completely different household, Demyx Strife was also peeved. Where Zexion had only five younger siblings to wrangle, he had eight. Thankfully, three of them were (marginally) well behaved, but he wouldn't put it past them to mangle him horribly.

On top of the fact that he was stuck inside on a Friday night while his dad was out with some buy, the house looked like a war zone. In the kitchen, furniture had been overturned, food was littered all over the floor, and Aero (the black lab that Sora had brought home one day) had decided to tear open his food bag and scatter the contents to four neighboring counties.

And in the midst of all this chaos, Naminé and Marlene were desperately attempting to cook dinner. It was originally supposed to be a rather nice dinner, something about spaghetti and meatballs, but since neither girl could find the ingredients to make said dinner, they had procured what looked like a twenty-gallon vat of soup. What was in said soup, Demyx didn't know. After seeing green gas issue from the pot while Naminé dumped something into it, he decided he didn't want to know.

But if the kitchen was a war zone, the living room was far, far worse. Everything was everywhere, the curtains had been pulled down, and the triplets had reached the ceiling fan. This made Demyx raise an eyebrow. Rikku, Yuna, and Paine had somehow climbed up to the ceiling fan, latched onto it, and were now whizzing around, laughing gaily.

"Having trouble?" Sora asked smugly.

Demyx groaned. "Sora, if you're here to mock me, go take Aero for a walk."

The dog in question barked happily before shooting off at a breakneck speed, turning the corner, and slamming straight into Marlene, who had just finished picking up the eggs all over the floor. Said eggs went flying, and judging from Marlene's yell, dog was now on the dinner menu.

"Sora, _now_. Unless you want dog for dinner."

Sora grumbled, but went to rescue Aero from an untimely death all the same.

Demyx sighed in relief. Now that the dog was out of the way, he could—

What might have once been the word "relax" was obliterated as the triplets came swinging down from the fan on extension cords, hollering at the tops of their lungs.

Demyx, swearing, dove out of the way.

"Paine! Put your pants back on! You are not Tarzan!"

Paine stuck out her tongue.

* * *

_If someone killed me now, I'd call it euthanasia,_ Zexion thought miserably. The worst had happened. He'd been overrun and carted off by his three younger brothers.

This explained most of why he was in one of the upstairs rooms, hanging from the ceiling fan by his ankles, slowly swinging in circles. As if that wasn't humiliating enough, Kadaj kept poking him in the forehead with a spatula.

"Where do you keep your old Halloween candy?" Kadaj yelled in what Zexion thought was supposed to be a frightening, interrogative manner. All it really did was make his head hurt.

"Kadaj, I hate candy. Do you honestly think I'd conceivably have any?"

"Yes!" Kadaj roared (as much as a feminine eleven-year-old could roar, anyway). "And you will tell us where it is, or face the consequences!" he finished, whapping Zexion with the spatula.

Zexion growled. "Kadaj, I've told you a thousand times that I don't have any candy!"

Kadaj glared at him. "You're a tough nut to crack… hey Loz, do we still have that giant metal spork?"

"Yep!" Loz chirped, grinning. He raced off to get it.

Meanwhile, there were only two thoughts running through Zexion's mind. The first was _oh, crap_. And the second:

_What the hell are those three doing with a metal spork?_

"Stay put now," Kadaj told him, smirking. "We must prepare. You're hiding candy, and we will have it."

Zexion did not want to know what this meant, so as soon as Kadaj left he set about untying himself. He subsequently decided that either Houdini was a genius, or he had superpowers. He was betting on the latter.

Fifteen miserable minutes later, the rope snapped, and he landed on his head with a crash. Seeing his opportunity for escape, he flolloped over to the door, nudged it open with his head, wiggled out, and promptly fell down the stairs.

Consequently, cool and collected Zexion was unceremoniously pitched off a cliff and clinically insane Zexion took his place.

"Revenge! Reeveenge!" he howled, inching his way into the kitchen at a pace that would shame a snail.

* * *

Sephiroth thought it had been a very nice night. He'd met Cloud at a Chinese restaurant, they'd had dinner, and he had just returned home after a very nice "goodnight" makeout session. Let it never again be said that Sephiroth Amami is incapable of unhappy.

That good mood all but evaporated the moment he opened the front door. The carnage in front of him looked like a scene straight out of the thirteenth circle of hell.

He was about to bellow for Zexion when someone seized his arm and yanked—hard—sending him sprawling to the ground. Riku—wearing a pot backwards on his head and carrying a skillet—shushed him.

"Quiet! They'll hear! We must return to base command before they do!"

"What are you—?"

"Shh! This way!"

Sephiroth, completely and utterly confused, followed Riku into the kitchen. All entrances to said kitchen had been barricaded with tables, chairs, and random kitchen appliances (to get in, Riku had to dislodge an electric mixer to make a crawl space). Zexion and Fuu were crouched over what looked like a crudely drawn map, shifting salt and pepper shakers around on top of it.

Sephiroth also noticed—with no small degree of worry—that both were wearing pots on their heads as well.

Riku saluted. "Hey, mission commander! Dad's home!" he said, grinning derisively.

Zexion looked up, rolling his eyes. "Enough with the soldier nonsense, Riku. Oh, hi dad."

"Okay," Sephiroth said slowly, "permit me to ask—what the _hell_ is going on in here?"

"Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo," Zexion said flatly. "We're at war."

"Ah," said Sephiroth. "That clears up a lot." He sighed again. "So what do you mean by war?"

As he said this, three darts and a tennis ball went sailing past his left ear and slammed into the wall behind him.

Sephiroth blinked.

Zexion handed him a saucepan. "Here. You'd better wear this."

Riku chucked a potato over the barricade.

* * *

"Okay, men," Riku said in a stage whisper to the other three. Fuu growled. "Okay, okay, and lady. Anyway, this is our only outpost. We must defend it at all costs!" As Riku said this, a veritable hail of lego blocks came sailing over the barricade.

Everyone held up their skillets. There were thusly many odd metallic clunking noises.

Zexion chucked a soup spoon over the barricade. A few seconds later, it came hurtling back and hit Sephiroth in the head.

"Annoyance," said Fuu. By this, they knew she meant "these three are really getting on my nerves, so we should subdue them now before they make me so angry I attempt to dismember them."

Everyone shuddered.

Sephiroth shrugged. "Well, you heard the lady. CHARGE!"

* * *

A few houses down and across the street, Auron, master of the red bathrobe, stood on his front lawn watching the chaos through the Amamis' living room window. He raised an eyebrow as what looked like a coffee table went flying past, followed by cutlery and bags of frozen vegetables.

He was so amused by the spectacle, he forgot to be annoyed when crazy old Maleficent, awoken by the noise, ran through the street in her nightgown screaming that "the darkness was coming to steal everyone's souls" and that she would rule the world with her pet ferrets at her side.

* * *

Meanwhile, Cloud, expecting the worst, cautiously pushed open the front door and poked his head inside.

The scene of carnage he found actually wasn't that bad. Nothing was bad compared to the great mess of '04—a distant cousin of the water heater incident.

Demyx, exhausted, was unconscious on the couch. This in and of itself wasn't interesting. What was interesting was that his head was on the floor and his feet were sticking over the top of the couch. In front of him, Sora and Roxas were playing a video game. But the most interesting thing was the ceiling. The triplets had somehow turned the fan into a swing and were happily whizzing around overhead.

He turned to check the kitchen, and found Naminé and Marlene attempting to clean honey and flour off of the floor.

But that only made eight.

As Cloud thought this single damning thought, Denzel came swinging into the front hall on a rope made of braided extension cords wearing only a pair of banana yellow boxers and yodeling the Star Wars theme song while trailing toilet paper in his wake.

Cloud's eye twitched. "Denzel! Put your pants back on!"

This, somehow, woke up Demyx, who pitched backward with a high-pitched scream and landed on Roxas. The triplets giggled.

* * *

The following Friday, the scene was the same. As well as the Friday after that. And the Friday after that. Every time, without fail, Cloud came home happy as a clam (even though clams are probably incapable of happiness) to find the house a wreck and Demyx seriously considering suicide and/or hiring a hitman to kill the triplets.

This continued until one day when Cloud came home looking grave and pensive, and immediately called for a family meeting. Of course, he was promptly peppered with questions from all nine children presents, ranging from "did you break up?" to "was he murdered by a serial killer?"

This last one earned Demyx a frying pan to the head, courtesy of Naminé, who promptly began to lecture him—in french—about sensitivity to the pains of others. Of course, Demyyx didn't understand a word she was saying, and so thought Naminé had simply gone crazy. But more of that another time.

Cloud, watching his nine misfits squirm like unruly puppies, decided things would probably go better if he dropped the entire bomb at once. So he did.

"Sephiroth asked me to move in with him."

Silence filled the room. The first words came from Naminé—"what kind of name is Sephiroth? I mean, that's just cruel."

Cloud rolled his eyes.

"What's the catch?" Roxas asked, eyes narrowed. "He knows about us, doesn't he?"

Cloud grinned in the way that court jesters do when they're about to reveal really, really bad news (and are rightly expecting to be beheaded for it). "There're two, actually. The first is that he lives in Hollow Bastion. Second," he gulped, "he has six kids."

* * *

Had Riku not been his very manly-man (yet still incredibly feminine) self, he might have fainted."

"Nine kids?" Yazoo asked, wide-eyed.

"Seventeen," said Fuu. Translated, this meant, "you do realize that six plus nine is fifteen, right? There will be seventeen people in this house. You _fool_!"

"You're serious about this," Riku said slowly. "You're really serious about this."

Sephiroth nodded.

Riku's brain exploded. "Are you _insane_?" he howled. "You can't even control us! And by us, I mean them!" he yelled, dramatically pointing a finger in Kadaj's general direction. "What makes you think you can handle nine more kids?"

Sephiroth shrugged in the way that adults do when they really want to say "hell if I know."

"Well, as long as _we're_ not moving…" Kadaj muttered.

"Don't worry. We're not moving. I asked him to move in with me—er, us, remember?"

* * *

"We're moving?" Sora and Roxas howled in perfect unison. "What about school?"

"There are perfectly good schools in Hollow Bastion."

"All of my friends live here," Marlene squeaked.

"We live in Traverse Town, Marlene," Denzel quipped. "No one lives here."

"True," Roxas conceded, looking rather like he'd been forced to swallow ten gallons of lemon juice.

Demyx decided it was in his best interests to remain silent.

Cloud looked at them all, pleading. "Please guys? Do this? For me?"

"I'm sharing a room with Roxas," Sora said immediately.

"I suppose I can make new friends," Marlene said thoughtfully. "But you seriously owe me!"

"Ce… _Sephiroth_ n'est pas mon père. Je ne lui obéirai pas. S'il croit qu'il peut me commander, il est stupid! _Stupid!_"

"There had better be a school with a good music program."

"We want pranking rights!"

"There needs to be a fencing salle _somewhere_."

"Eh, who cares. This place is boring, anyway."

"Okay, then, it's settled. We're moving," Cloud announced, smiling radiantly. Inwardly, he thought _God help us all._

* * *

_What, _Cloud wondered, _the hell was I thinking? This is worse than a road trip! Well, technically this is a road trip… but still! This is just… horrible!_

'This' referred to the packed minivan that Cloud was currently driving along the interstate, towing behind him Fenrir and being followed by not one but two moving vans, with Aero and the chocobos in the trunk.

"Knock it off back there!" he howled as Paine pitched a wadded-up cheeseburger wrapper past his ear. She smiled innocently.

Demyx let out a loud snore from the front passenger seat. Cloud rolled his eyes. For some reason, Demyx seemed incapable of staying awake while in a car. Behind him, Sora and Roxas were completely absorbed in their video games, Naminé had her nose in a compilation of Shakespeare's plays, and Marlene was reading a manga—which, Cloud noted with suspicion, looked an awful lot like one of Demyx's.

That row wasn't the trouble. The very back row, comprised of Denzel and the triplets, was currently engaged in the backseat trash fight to end all backseat trash fights—but the middle row was becoming involved all too quickly. Naminé shrieked as a greasy wrapper hit the back of her head, and Denzel ducked as she threw a hail of old candy in his direction. Cloud groaned. He was going to have to clean the van. _Again_.

Rikku dumped her soda on Yuna's head (what was left of it, anyway), getting a shriek and a face-full of mustard from her sister. Marlene spun around and smacked Yuna in the head with her book, who shrieked and threw a bag of old fish sticks at Marlene's face.

Marlene was obviously displeased by this turn of events, and so swore loudly and slapped Yuna across the face with what looked like part of a fish taco.

Cloud whimpered miserably. _I have to clean the van. Again._

A half-eaten slice of cake landed on Demyx's head with a splat.

He snored louder.

Paine giggled.

Cloud considered driving the van into a ravine.

"I pwned you!" yelled Paine to the unconscious Demyx.

"Is pwned a word? Besides, he can't hear you," said Sora and Roxas, in a thrilling display of their voodoo-twin-mind-powers.

"Le monde est bête."

"What?"

"The world is retarded."

"I have to agree."

"Why does the van smell like fish?"

"Marlene slapped Yuna with a fish taco. And Yuna threw a bag of fish sticks."

"It's really messy in here."

"Stop talking in unison!"

"So sorry."

"It's really—"

"—messy—"

"—in here."

"Knock it off!"

"So sorry—"

"—would you like—"

"—us to stop?"

"Vous deux, vous sont impossibles."

"_English_."

"You two are impossible.

"It took you until now to figure this out, Minnie?"

"Don't call me Minnie!" Naminé screeched.

Denzel smirked. "Sorry. _Minnie_."

Naminé crushed the soda can in her hand.

Denzel 'eep'ed.

Cloud, fed up, slammed his forehead into the horn. The eight in the back screamed, and Demyx shot straight up, yelling, "I don't want to tap dance!"

There was momentary silence as everyone processed what Demyx had just said. Demyx turned red and made to put a hand on the back of his head. And he discovered the cake.

"Who the hell threw this?" he bellowed, attempting to remove frosting from his beloved hair.

There was silence. And then the van exploded with laughter.

"You look ridiculous!" Cloud choked.

"Gee, thanks dad. I always aspired to make you laugh at my misfortune."

Silence and sanity (a certain degree of it, anyway) resumed, and Cloud happily drove along.

Marlene hit Denzel with a spatula.

* * *

"I think it was… the pianist in the dressing room with the huge-ass revolver!"

"How'd you come up with that? It's clearly the defense attorney in the poker room with the juice bottle!"

"You're both wrong! It was the prosecutor in the temple gardens with the katana!"

"And Marlene wins! Again!"

Cloud, looking in the rearview mirror, raised an eyebrow.

Sora, Roxas, Naminé, and Marlene were valiantly attempting to play some sort of bastardized version of Clue in the backseat. And Marlene had won. For the fifth time.

"How did you know?" Roxas muttered, attempting to shuffle the cards (and dropping them when the van hit a speed bump).

Marlene smirked. "It's called observation, Roxy."

"I keep telling you, don't call me that!"

Sora, previously sitting pensively, blinked.

"Guys? Where's Aero?"

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Sora, Aero's in his cage. In the trunk. With the chocobos. Remember?"

Aero, having heard his name, barked happily. Sora flushed.

Naminé grinned. "All hail, boy-with-memory-span-of-goldfish!"

"Goldfish! Goldfish!" the triplets sang.

Roxas, meanwhile, was studying the board, eyes narrowed. "Sora, where the hell'd you get 'pianist' from? This case doesn't have a pianist as a suspect!"

Sora blinked.

"And Naminé, why'd you guess the weapon was a bottle? That's not one of the options."

"Wait, _what_?"

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Don't you get it? Someone shuffled all of the case cards together!"

Demyx snorted. "You guys didn't notice that?"

"So that's how Marlene keeps winning!" Sora exclaimed. "She's the only one with the right cards!"

"And this only just occurred to you?"

"Aw, shaddup Denzel."

Naminé held up the cards. "Who wants to play again?"

At that moment, the van hit a pothole, and the cards sprayed all over the van.

Cloud whimpered.

* * *

Many miserably chaotic miles later, the van finally entered the city of Hollow Bastion.

"It's…" Sora commented, eyes wide, "…really, really big."

"It's a lot bigger than back home, that's for sure."

"Dad, do you even know where this guy's house is?"

Cloud flushed. "Yes, I know where it is! He gave me a map and everything! We'll be fine!"

"Don't say we didn't warn you. Can you read a map and drive at the same time?" Naminé asked.

"Of course I can!"

But, twenty minutes later, Cloud had to concede that he was completely, hopelessly lost."

"The city's changed since I came here last," he commented, making yet another u-turn.

"Dad, you grew up in Nibelheim and Midgar. You've never been here, have you?"

Cloud flushed. "Right. Midgar and Hollow Bastion just look kind of similar."

After driving around in circles for half an hour, Cloud finally handed the map over to Demyx.

"Uh, dad, you do realize you've been looking at this upside-down, right?"

"Of course I noticed!"

Five minutes after Demyx took control of all navigational duties, the van pulled up in front of a picturesque, three story house in one of Hollow Bastion's wealthiest suburbs. Everyone piled out of the van and spent several minutes just staring at the house they'd pulled up in front of.

"This is it, right?" Roxas asked, gaping slightly.

Cloud checked the map. "Yup. House number thirteen."

"It's unlucky," Marlene muttered. "Bad vibes."

Demyx rolled his eyes. "Come on people. It's just a house. And now we're living in it."

This comment seemed to bring Cloud back to his senses, and he quickly resumed control of his mental faculties.

"Okay, you guys, we're here. Now, there were some slight rooming constraints—there's only so much you can do to fit seventeen people into one house—but we got everything worked out. Demyx, you're sharing a room with his oldest son—I believe that he's your age. Sora, Roxas, you two are sharing a room with one of his sons as well. Naminé, you're rooming with his daughter. Denzel, Marlene, you two are going to have to share a room for the time being—be nice to each other, you hear?—and Rikku, Yuna, Paine, you three are sharing a room as well."

"Eh, shouldn't be too bad. Just stay on your side of the room, Marly."

"Well?" Demyx asked, grinning. "Can we go find our rooms? Can we? Can we? Please?"

Cloud grinned. "Good to see someone's excited about this. No problem. Sephiroth gave me a key, and he said he marked all of the doors with sticky notes with your names on them."

"Come to think of it, where are they?" Roxas asked, looking around. "The house looks pretty deserted to me."

"He said he was going to take his kids out to a movie so we'd have a little time to move everything in. So… we'd better get started if we want to finish!"

So he opened the front door… and all hell broke loose as everyone quite literally stampeded into the house, making about as much noise as a herd of a thousand elephants. For the next twenty minutes, Cloud gamely attempted to unload both moving trucks by himself as his unruly brood stampeded through the house.

"Look at the kitchen, Marlene! It's huge!"

"Screw that, look at the backyard! There's a freaking _pool_!"

"A pool? Oh hell yes!"

"How many flights of stairs are in this house anyway?"

"It's kinda strange, being in a house with no fire damage!"

"Is it just me, or is everything in here either a shade of silver or blue?"

"Où est ma chambre?"

"What?"

"Where's my bedroom?"

"How the heck should I know? Check the third floor!"

Outside, Cloud grinned as he attempted to wrestle a box marked 'Demyx' out of one of the trucks.

_Maybe this won't be so hard for them after all._

* * *

Demyx, carrying three boxes full of assorted random crap, nudged open the door to 'his' room (with some difficulty, of course—ever try opening a door with your elbows?).

And blinked.

_Okay, either they were forced to clean up, or my roommate's a total neat freak. Has anyone even lived in here before now?_ he wondered, staring at his roommate's half of the room.

It was, in a word, sterile—yet practically covered in books. Said books were stacked on shelves, on the desk, and—Demyx would bet his sitar on this one—were probably piled under the bed. He glanced at a few of them.

_Legal books? Man, this guy's such a bore and I haven't even met him yet! But seriously, who needs this many books on law anyway. Oh no. I've gotten stuck with an aspiring lawyer. Someone just shoot me. Oh, wait, there's a few psychology books… could this guy get any more boring?_

And, to his eternal shock and chagrin, there were no posters. Anywhere. Not a one.

"Well," he said cheerily, "time to remedy that!"

And thusly, he set about decorating—or, as his roommate would later come to see it, destroying—his new room.

* * *

Two doors over, Sora and Roxas were gamely attempting to fit the box full of their many game systems through the doorway.

"Try turning it a bit to the right," Roxas told him from inside the room.

"This way?"

"Yeah. Keep going, keep going, okay, and stop. Now… heave!"

And with an almighty shove, the two literally fell through the doorway.

"Nice room," Sora commented. "Can't believe it's ours."

"And someone else's," Roxas muttered. Sora threw an arm over his twin's shoulder.

"Aw, it's okay, Roxy. It's two against one, anyway." He grinned at his twin. "Come on, let's go get another box."

Roxas rolled his eyes at Sora's retreating back.

_We don't know anything about these people and we're moving into their house. I just don't think this can go off without a hitch._

He followed Sora all the same.

* * *

Upstairs, Cloud had found a note with his name on it taped to Sephiroth's bedroom door. He sat down gingerly on one side of the enormous bed and carefully unfolded it.

_Cloud—_

_I thought today might be hard for your kids to handle all at once, so as you can see we've vacated the premises for the time being. I figured I'd give your kids some time to get used to the idea of living in this house without having to deal with my kids and me at the same time._

_As you may have guessed, this is my room—although I suppose it's our room now, isn't it? Make yourself at home—that goes for everyone, not just you—but tell your kids to watch out. I can't be entirely sure the house is prank-free._

_We'll be back by three to help you unpack and get settled in, and I suppose we can then begin the arduous process of getting everything straight. I don't know how I'm going to remember nine new names, but I'll do it somehow. You'll have to help me, though. I've never been good with names. Ever._

_Love you._

_Sephiroth_

_P.S. Look out when opening the closet door. I don't know how he does it, but Kadaj usually manages to rig some prank to go off as soon as someone opens the door._

_P.P.S. If your kids are so inclined, please inform them that they shouldn't try to climb out of the windows to get to the roof. Kadaj broke an arm and a leg the last time he tried. Although funny, his screams of pain got rather annoying after a while. Tell them to go by the attic instead—I've taken to keeping rock climbing equipment up there. Having them rappel off the roof with decent equipment is a lot safer than some of the…alternative methods my kids have come up with._

Cloud grinned. It sounded like the triplets would get along fine with this Kadaj.

He flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

_I hope this goes well for everyone. It seems like we're off to a good start, but…_

He glanced over at the many pictures on Sephiroth's bedside table. The foremost of these was a picture of the two of them at their senior prom.

_Aw, to heck with it. I'm sure we'll be alright._

There was a loud thud and a yell of "OW!"

"Dad! Denzel just fell out of the bathroom window!"

_Screw that. We're all doomed._

* * *

Aand… cut!

And so ends chapter two! Thanks to everyone who reviewed and/or favorited for the last couple of chapters. Now, do you see where I'm going with these pairings? I think you can probably guess just from the way I arranged the rooms. Ahh, lurve. Yes, you should see some nice CloudSeph, Zemyx, Soriku, and AkuRoku headed your way. Ahh, slash.

And don't worry, all of your favorite KH/FF characters will find their way in here somehow.

Oh, sorry about the random Phoenix Wright references. I'm kind of on a perpetual GS high now that I've discovered its gloriousness. There's just nothing like sitting in the living room screaming "Objection!" at your video games. Gets some pretty interesting looks.

Well, the action should start in the next chapter. Kukuku… let the chaos begin!

Oh, before I forget, updates might get a bit strange over the next few weeks. I… kinda signed myself up for drill team tryouts, so that's going to be taking up quite a bit of my time for the rest of the month. Wish me luck! (And if you're lucky, I'll roll out another chapter this week—it's spring break, and I'm home all week!)

Oh, and if you want to know what it was that Naminé said, then here you go. What I meant for her to say was "This... Sephiroth is not my dad. I won't listen to him. If he thinks he can order me around, then he's stupid. _Stupid_!"

Or you could just learn French.

Oh, and a fencing salle is just a fencing club. Please say you know what fencing is.


	4. Handle With Care

(waves)

Hi peeps! It's been a while, hasn't it? Wow. Spring Break was a long time ago.

Anyhoo, here's the latest chapter. Have fun with it.

Dereich, per your request, Axel's in this chapter. :) I'm glad there's enough humor for you. Really, that's all I can write. If you guys have any more suggestions, let me know!

Oh, by the way, those Phoenix Wright references? None of you got them all! (sniffle) apatheticfire got the most (the "fool" rants and the prosecutor thing) but none of you got the random phrases from their bastardized version of Clue! (sniff)

**Disclaimer:** I am a proud owner of five cents, a house key, and the ball of lint I found in my left back pocket.

* * *

**Curiosity Killed the Cat—**

**Then Satisfaction Brought Him Back**

**(Curiosity, Satisfaction)**

Chapter Three: Handle With Care

Zexion Amami prided himself on being the most normal person in the Amami family.

No one believed him. After all, what's normal about a seventeen-yea-old capable of passing the bar exam and who, on a good day, was often as responsive as a glacier (unless he was at home or in extreme pain)?

What was also not normal about Zexion was his bizarre love for classical music—and his corresponding deep hatred for anything else. If it was not classical, Zexion could not bear it. He _loathed_ it. He abhorred it for reasons completely beyond human understanding.

So he was understandably pissed off when he heard strains of rock music filtering through the house when he walked through the door. He was even less pleased when he realized it was coming from the second floor—his room was _on_ the second floor. So it logically follows that he was royally pissed off when he reached the door to his room and realized that the music—the horrible, evil music—was coming from _behind_ it. He entered the room, fully ready to take a sledgehammer to the skull of whoever had moved in.

His brain stopped working before he made it that far.

His half of the room was, thankfully, untouched. The other half, however, had been—in Zexion's mind, anyway—completely desecrated. His mystery roommate had stuck up posters everywhere so that there was no longer a wall to be seen. Music sheets and books were piled haphazardly on the shelves. But the crowning horror—in Zexion's mind—was the gigantic stereo in the corner, blasting the infernal rock music he hated so much. He was about to go turn it off when something… happened.

Zexion was so caught up in his music-based hatred that he was entirely unprepared for someone to literally fall through the open doorway, completely winded, and land on him. Zexion and the newcomer went sprawling to the floor, and a gigantic instrument case landed next to them with an ominous thud. When his brain finally came back on, Zexion realized he was staring straight into a pair of the bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

A split second later, he realized those eyes were only a couple of inches away. And their noses were touching. The blue eyes widened exponentially.

"Oh god, I'm sorry! I didn't expect anyone to be standing there!" the owner of the aforementioned eyes exclaimed, scrambling off of him and giving him a hand up. Still dazed, Zexion took it.

The owner of the blue eyes was a tall blond with one of the strangest hairstyles Zexion had ever seen.

_What the hell is it? It looks like a cross between a mullet and a Mohawk. A mullethawk?_

The blond continued to apologize profusely as he retrieved the fallen instrument case. "Sorry! This thing's really heavy, y'know? Kinda hard to get up these stairs."

The blond put his hand on his hip, and studied Zexion closely. Zexion himself was ever so slightly freaked out. The blond gave him a sunny smile.

"So I guess we're rooming together, huh? I'm Demyx."

"Zexion," he replied tersely—the infernal music was beginning to make his head hurt. "Could you turn down that infernal racket?"

Demyx looked momentarily confused, and then realized Zexion was talking about his music. He pouted and crossed his arms. "It's not an infernal racket! It's the greatest rock band of all time!"

Zexion shook his head. "Sounds like noise to me." Demyx growled in response, and launched into what Zexion assumed would be a long lecture on the virtues of evil demon music from hell. He grabbed a book from the shelf behind him—_Contradictions and Cross-Examinations_—and sat down on his bed to read as Demyx continued to lecture.

"—their guitar solos are magical, and—" Demyx looked and Zexion and frowned. "You aren't even listening to me, are you."

"Nope," Zexion replied, turning the page. "Haven't heard a word." Demyx huffed and stomped out of the room.

Only when he was sure Demyx was gone did Zexion allow himself to blush—he'd been less than an inch away from the other boy, after all.

* * *

Riku felt vaguely as though he'd been hit on the head with a sixteen-ton anvil.

Because the boy currently standing on tiptoes to put a box up in the closet could _not_ have been human. Nope. Humans just don't come that beautiful. Spiky brown hair, big blue eyes, perfect pink lips—

"Um, hey. Are you okay? 'cause you're kinda staring vacantly and drooling.?"

He could have died then and there and gone happily. He, Riku Amami, most popular junior at Oblivion High, had just met his future conquest/love interest/boyfriend/husband.

"Are you okay? Seriously? You kinda look like you're having a seizure. Crap. Oh no oh no what do I _do_?"

Somewhere in the depths of Riku's depraved teenage mind, Romantic Riku and Sane Riku were engaged in mortal combat (with a _C_) over control of Riku's main faculties.

"Aw, come on!" Romantic Riku whined, dodging six bullets and a monkey. "We should just kiss the kid and get it over with!"

"No, we shouldn't!" Sane Riku cried, reloading his submachine gun. "He'll scream 'rapist' and then we'll get arrested!"

"Aw, but don't you want to know what those pretty pink lips feel like—taste like…"

"Do you want to be charged with molestation?"

"How can anyone resist?"

"We have no information or confirmation that this kid is even gay. Thus, kissing him without this knowledge can only lead to bad things."

"How _isn't_ he gay?"

The battle continued in this manner for several very long minutes. Meanwhile, back in reality, Riku's stare was still vacant and the object of his truly bizarre affections was looking for a defibrillator. In short, Riku's chances at wooing the love of his life were headed for an almost certain crash landing in the desert of crushed dreams. Also by this point, Romantic Riku—who was currently staring down the barrel of Sane Riku's sub-machine gun—cried 'uncle.'

"I give up! I give up!" he howled, running in circles with the proverbial white flag clutched in his grip. Sane Riku smirked.

"I knew you'd come to see things my way."

"Still, though—can we woo the kid?"

Sane Riku flipped the safety to 'off.' Romantic Riku 'eep'ed.

"No, seriously! Long-term! That way, everyone's happy!"

Sane Riku mulled this over briefly before nodding. "Fine. But if everything goes wrong, _don't_ come crying to me to fix it!"

Romantic Riku stuck out his tongue. "Yeah. Like I'd ever do that."

Once again, back in reality, Riku was still staring at Sora as though he'd just spotted a really, really big chocolate bar. Sora, consequently, was just a touch creeped out. Having given up on finding a defibrillator—if there was one, Denzel had probably jury-rigged it to shoot fire by now—he settled for the next best thing.

Poking him in the forehead. Of course, he was about a foot taller than Sora, which made for an entertaining spectacle.

The poking continued for several minutes before Riku remembered exactly where he was and snapped out of his strange mental argument with himself.

Realizing that the love of his life as standing right in front of him almost sent him back into la-la land. He held it in. Instead, he readied his (almost) patented Megawatt Girlfriend/Boyfriend-Winning Smile upon poor, innocent Sora.

"Sorry about that. I'm Riku. And you are?"

Bad pickup line aside, Sora flushed almost imperceptibly. "I'm Sora."

Romantic Riku was very, very happy with this tidbit of information.

"Anyway," Sora mumbled, "I guess we're roommates now."

Riku shrugged. "Guess so."

Romantic Riku danced a jig.

As Riku was about to pry for more information about his beloved angel, the door slammed open and what looked like a stack of boxes with legs staggered into the room. Sora rolled his eyes. "Roxas, must you always overdo it? You could've taken more than one trip."

The stack of boxes set itself on the floor, and a kid who Riku assumed had to be Roxas popped up from behind them. Roxas looked as though he'd just run a marathon.

"Couldn't," he wheezed. "I barely saved them from… three little silver-haired hellions," he groaned, collapsing onto the nearest bed.

Riku sighed. "Sounds like Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo."

Roxas' head snapped around so fast Riku was sure he'd snapped his neck in the process. Roxas stared at him, eyes narrowed.

"Who're you?"

"Riku," he replied, feeling vaguely as though he was attempting to defuse a bomb. "Who're you?"

"Roxas," Roxas replied tersely, eyes flicking from Riku to Sora and back.

Sora flung an arm over Roxas' shoulder. "Roxy here's my twin brother. He's staying here too."

Roxas glared. Riku resisted the urge to whimper.

Sora—perhaps sensing that the temperature in the room had just dropped several degrees—began pulling Roxas out the door. "Come on Roxy! Let's go get more boxes!"

Roxas allowed himself to be led out of the room, but not before he leveled Riku with one final glare that spoke volumes.

_Touch my brother, and I'll kill you._

Romantic Riku burst into tears and considered becoming emo.

Riku flopped back onto his bed, slightly dazed and confused. Sora… the kid was an angel. _His_ angel. Riku decided then and there that he would win Sora over if it was the last thing he ever did. Calling to mind Roxas' glare, Riku had to wonder if it _would_ be the last thing he ever did.

He lay there in deep thought for a few minutes, until he was rather rudely interrupted by a clang and crash outside the open window. Then, a few seconds later, a head of fire-truck-red hair poked itself through the window.

"Hey! What's up?"

* * *

The head in question belonged to one Axel Tsuyuri, son of Tseng and Elena Tsuyuri. Tseng and Elena were famous throughout Hollow Bastion for being two of the most sadistic and violent people in the city. It was considered one of the Wonders of Hollow Bastion that Axel had survived his early childhood.

Of course, Axel was just as screwed up (if not more) as his parents. Growing up in a household run by a woman with a gun fetish had somehow turned his affections to fire. And so where Axel went, a lighter went with him. And where the lighter went, things had a tendency to burst into flame. It was also considered one of the Wonders of Hollow Bastion that insurance companies hadn't added "Axel Coverage" to their policies yet. Although most people were just happy that Axel hadn't inherited his mother's gun fetish.

No, Axel was not normal. His bright red spiky hair (it was also considered one of the Wonders of Hollow Bastion that a woman with blonde hair and a man with black hair—both with very straight, tamable hair—could somehow produce a child with hair reminiscent of a fire truck and about as tamable as a bush) and facial tattoos could attest to that. As could his preferred method of entrance to the Amami home—Riku's bedroom window.

Seeing his best friend hanging half-in and half-out of his bedroom window was such a common occurrence that Riku no longer really thought about it.

"Hey, Axel. What're you here for?"

Axel pouted. "Do I need an excuse to visit my best bud?" Riku rolled his eyes in response. "Seriously, though, did you see the moving vans parked outside?"

"Yes, Axel, I saw them. I live here."

"Well, what's going on? Are you moving or something?"

Riku shook his head. "No, Axel, I would have told you. Dad just asked his new-old-current boyfriend to move in."

"Oookay. But what's with all the stuff?"

"His boyfriend has nine kids."

Riku thought for a moment that Axel had spontaneously combusted.

"Nine?" he exclaimed, laughing. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Riku shook his head. "Nope. See the extra two beds? What'd you think they were for?"

Axel shrugged. "So they're sleeping here?"

"Yeah. Twins. Two boys. They're our age, I think."

Axel's face lit up, and a grin spread over his face. "So _that's_ what that look was! It was the "I've-Found-A-New-Boyfriend-And-I-Want-To-Kiss-Him-Senseless" look!"

Riku blinked. "Was it really that obvious?"

Axel nodded. "Your face, my thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters." At Riku's questioning look, he shrugged. "Macbeth. You know, the book we're reading in class?"

"Axel. You actually read the assigned book?"

"It has death. Lots of death. That makes me very, very happy." He shifted on the ladder. "So which twin is it? Or both?"

Riku grinned. "His name's Sora, and—"

They were interrupted by the door, which swung open once more to admit Sora and Roxas with more boxes.

"Oh!" Sora squeaked. "Where's you come from?"

"Huh, Axel? Oh, he likes climbing in here through the window. Happens all the time."

Roxas glared at Axel. Axel remained suspiciously silent.

Riku glanced at Axel and found him staring at Roxas as though an anvil had clocked him on the head.

"Come on, Roxy!" Sora growled, dragging his perpetually glaring twin out the door. He mouthed a quick "sorry" at Riku as he left.

Axel snapped out of it when the door slammed. "Who was that? The blond, I mean."

"That," Riku said, grinning, "is Roxas. Sora's basically-identical twin and acting chastity belt."

"Roxas…" Axel trailed off. Riku rolled his eyes. And Axel said _he_ was bad…

Axel turned to look outside as there came a loud scream, a thud, and a yell of "cool!" A couple minutes later, the same thing occurred. And a couple minutes later, the same thing happened again. Axel looked at Riku. "Did you know there's a kid systematically throwing himself out of every window in your house?"

* * *

Sephiroth opened the door to his bedroom slowly and carefully. Kadaj may have only been home for a few minutes, but he wasn't taking any chances. It really was a sad day when he had to fear entering his own room. Fortunately, there did not appear to be any horrible traps involving electrical impulses, a flamethrower, and a dead pig, so he allowed himself to relax a bit.

As he had suspected, he found Cloud there, hands on the windowsill in front of him, staring out at the rest of Hollow Bastion. Cloud squeaked slightly as Sephiroth wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him in close, but he leaned back into Sephiroth all the same. Cloud sighed contentedly.

"You're back," he muttered happily. "Seen any of my kids yet?'

Sephiroth rested his chin against the top of Cloud's head. "Well, I saw three little girls playing on the diving board," here Cloud groaned, "a blonde and a brunette girl in the kitchen, then I saw a brunet boy fall out of one of the first-floor windows, a set of twin boys getting stuff out of the back of the truck, and a blond boy with an… _interesting_ hairstyle hauling what looked like a contrabass case up the stairs." He laughed slightly. "Please don't tell me you brought more with you."

Cloud laughed. "No, I didn't. I don't think I could handle ten."

Sephiroth smiled down at him. "Do you like it here?"

"Like it here?"

"Yes. This house, the thought of fifteen children in this house… _me_…"

"Like it here?" Cloud repeated, before he turned in Sephiroth's arms to stare up at him seriously. "I _love_ it here. This was what I dreamed of back in high school. Us, together, like this. Granted, I never imagined fifteen children in the equation, but… this is everything I've ever wanted! But…" he trailed off, head drooping slightly.

"Worried, Sephiroth laid a hand on Cloud's cheek. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"My kids," Cloud murmured. "I uprooted their lives to come here. All for my own selfish dreams. I ruined everything for them," he finished, leaning forward into Sephiroth's chest. "I've been selfish."

Sephiroth lifted Cloud's chin. "It's okay. From what I've heard, your kids love you. They wouldn't have gone along with this if they didn't." He planted a kiss on Cloud's forehead. "That said, if your kids are truly miserable, I won't try to keep you here. If you really feel you must, do whatever you think is right." He kissed the tip of Cloud's nose. "I love you. Never forget that."

Cloud smiled, and brought up a hand to the one already on his cheek. "I love you too. I always have."

He stood on his tiptoes and leaned forward to press a kiss to Sephiroth's lips. Sephiroth kissed him back, one hand on Cloud's cheek and the other playing with his hair. For a moment, the world fell away, and it was just him and Sephiroth, as the taller man reassured him with sweet kisses and every worry in the world melted away. Just the two of them. For a moment, that was bliss.

"You really think this will work?" Cloud asked as Sephiroth nipped at his ear.

Sephiroth smiled. "I think it will. Now stop worrying."

However, to general annoyance and dismay, the Powers That Be decided to intervene. At that moment, just as Cloud and Sephiroth were set to go on to more pleasing activities, the door to the bedroom slammed open and in came Roxas, dragging Sora along behind him. It should be noted that, at this time, Roxas had a look on his face that was a cross between "I've Just Smelled Something Really Bad," "I Would Like To Commit Mass Homicide At This Point In Time," and "Ew! I Just Saw My Dad Making Out With A Guy I Don't Know." To put it simply, Roxas looked vaguely as though he'd been force-fed jalapeños and expired milk.

He stormed into the room (dragging Sora), put his hands on his hips, and declared, quite emphatically, "Our roommate is a rapist."

In the silence that reigned afterward, Cloud and Sephiroth shared a look that quite clearly stated one thing.

_There's no way in hell this is going to work._

* * *

As many psychiatrists and child specialists had discovered, Roxas was incapable of certain forms of logical reasoning. These lapses in judgment, as doctors called them, all occurred in situations involving only one common factor—Sora. To word it differently, Roxas just had a bad case of "Protective Little Brother" syndrome. As the doctors put it, Roxas simply felt a burning need to make up for his older brother's naïveté.

Which was all fine and dandy, considering that Sora was about as good at spotting mean, evil people as a three-year-old in a candy store being told not to eat anything. Unfortunately, this meant that Roxas mistrusted anyone who came near his big brother. And if he decided that he didn't like them, he had a tendency to overreact. Violently.

It took Roxas approximately 4.2 seconds to decide that he didn't like this Riku character one bit. Later, during the big "meet everyone in the house" meeting, in which Roxas caught Riku covertly glancing at Sora with a slightly lecherous look on his face, it took him another 2.4 seconds to decide that Riku was a threat to Sora's safety, sanity, and virginity. And thusly, Roxas' Magnificent Vengeance (with capitals) began.

Within three hours of his arrival home, Riku had been tripped twice, had a box of what felt like bricks dropped on his foot four times, been elbowed in the ribs and smacked on the head once, and fallen down the stairs three times. These 'accidents' left him with an impressive array of bruises and lacerations, prompting Fuu to ask, "Bat?" by which she meant, "Did you get mugged or something? You look like shit. But if you didn't get mugged, then I don't care." And then, almost as an afterthought, "Fool."

Roxas' Magnificent Vengeance was also somewhat aided and abetted by the triplets. If given the proper motivation, they would do almost anything that Roxas asked. About ten minutes after this pact was formed, Riku discovered that his closet doors had been mysteriously superglued shut. Sora and Axel—who, in typical Axel fashion, had hung around even though he was really just in the way—were rather perplexed.

* * *

Dinner that night was also a rather painful affair, although in more of an awkward sense of the word rather than a _"I'm bleeding!"_ sense. Cloud sat at one end of the absurdly large table and Sephiroth at the other, children between them. Of course, they'd all lumped together in groups, and ate silently without looking at anyone at the other end of the table. Naminé, who bore an uncanny resemblance to a shell-shocked squirrel, squeaked whenever Fuu so much as shifted in her general direction. Kadaj, however, seemed torn between glaring at Denzel or just staring at Marlene with a look that would later be dubbed "The First Sadistic Appearance Of Youthful Hormones." Even Aero was rather subdued—rather than begging for food or breaking something, the black lab was curled up on the floor with his head on Sora's feet.

Cloud and Sephiroth were thus completely convinced that there was no way in hell this was ever going to work. Both of them had already noted—with a certain degree of panic—that Riku was staring at Sora as though he'd been chased down and trampled by a mob of people in animal costumes.

_God help us all_, Cloud thought miserably. _At least we have some peace and quiet. Relatively speaking, anyway._

* * *

This state of relative peace continued for the next couple of weeks. By relative, it meant that everything was only slightly less chaotic than a mall on Christmas Eve. Roxas continued in his slightly irrational quest to maim Riku at all costs—Sora still couldn't figure out why Riku kept falling down the stairs—and Riku contied his quest to win over Sora while staying alive. Zexion had developed a habit of kicking Demyx out at night, but usually relented by 3 AM when Demyx began to paw at the door and whimper like a kicked puppy. Sora had also developed an affinity for paintball guns, and some brilliant individual had designated Sephiroth as the official paintball target—rumor had it that Cloud was responsible. Unfortunately for Sora, Cloud hadn't bothered to mention how much Sephiroth enjoyed fighting people. He'd also forgotten to mention Sephiroth's insane, practically inhuman strength. And his impressive skill with seven-foot-long swords. Basically, Cloud forgot to mention that Sephiroth was the basic equivalent of an insane, genetically modified army general.

It was, consequently, a very bruised and battered Sora who limped in for lunch on the day of the incident. His appearance caused Cloud—who had sparred with Sephiroth several times back in the day and knew just what to expect—to burst into hysterical laughter, Roxas to make a horrible wailing noise that sounded oddly like a cat in a bathtub, and Riku to fry his brain trying not to go nurse Sora back to health—in a manner that involved neither nurses nor medication.

Sephiroth, to his credit, hadn't actually killed Sora, and looked rather sheepish.

* * *

Then, on one beautiful, sunny morning, everyone in the city under the age of eighteen woke up with a collective, horrified thought—_Crap! School starts tomorrow!_

Thus began a famous day in the Amami-Strife household. A day of much moaning, groaning, and panicked finishing of summer reading packets.

It was also the day that Demyx found a school of piranha spawning in the upstairs toilet. But nobody cared much about that.

* * *

Aand… done!

…I just realized that nothing important happened in this chapter. Sorry about that, but if I kept going this chapter would reach the length of a short novel. 4386 words!

And I know you'd all love that, but then you'd never get to read it since I'd never actually finish typing it, being too lazy to finish anything.

I hope this chapter works out okay with you guys. And I put some fluff in there, just for all of you wonderful people.

(mutters) I shouldn't even be writing fluff… never kissed anyone…

…_anyway_, let me know what you thought! I'll try to get a new chapter up soon!


	5. Does Anyone Know What That Thing Is?

Wow. (sigh)

I finally got this chapter out. Finished it this morning, actually. For a while, I was calling it "The Chapter That Never Ends," 'cause the stupid thing _just wouldn't end!_

Ah, well. I'm pretty happy with how the final product turned out, but as always, let me know what you think of it.

Oh, kind of an interesting question, but if anyone has the correct spelling for the plural of 'marlboro' (as in the Final Fantasy monster) I'd love to know it.

OH. BY THE WAY. Demyx's eyes, as I discovered, aren't actually blue. They're GREEN. So just assume, for all intents and purposes, that I got it right the first time. (crazy grin)

**Disclaimer:** I own a sad, pathetic Roxas cosplay outfit that I made last year. I would love for it to be the real Roxas, but for now I must settle for that and try to avoid strange Axel cosplayers. *sigh*

* * *

**Curiosity Killed the Cat—**

**Then Satisfaction Brought Him Back**

**(Curiosity, Satisfaction)**

Chapter Four: Does Anyone Know What That Thing Is?

Demyx was of the not-entirely-singular opinion that Oblivion High School was not big. It was freaking _huge_. It was quite possibly the biggest building—the biggest _educational_ building—that he'd ever seen. Another not-entirely-singular thought in his mind was the fact that the school was painted black was just a little creepy. And then there was the matter of the school symbol.

"It's… what the _hell_ is that thing?" Roxas wondered, staring up at it.

"C'est… blanc."

"What?"

"It's white, moron."

"It's pretty big," Sora muttered. "But what _is_ it?"

"If you turn it sideways it kinda looks like a… oh, wait. Never mind. I got nothing."

"C'est… c'est…"

"Africa," Sora said decisively. Everyone turned to look at him.

"What?"

"I dunno."

"No one here's really quite sure what that is?" Riku said, arriving with an armful of papers. "And it's not even our school mascot."

"Well then… what's the school mascot?"

"A Dusk."

Silence.

"Well don't ask me, no one knows what it is!"

"I've told you a thousand times what a Dusk is, Riku," Zexion commented irritably. "You just refuse to listen."

"How is a 'nobody' a decent explanation?" Riku wailed. "How can a living creature not have a heart?"

"Cells don't have hearts, do they? Just think of it as a giant cell."

"A giant cell that's been crossed with a rubber-band ball and a zipper."

"_Comment_?"

Riku blinked. He still wasn't used to Naminé's frequent outbursts _en français._

Naminé rolled her eyes. "Idiot."

"Schedules," Fuu said grumpily, arriving with a thick stack of paper.

"Okay," Demyx said brightly, "what'd you all get?"

Sora blinked. "PE. Crap." Everyone winced.

"Morning PE's _horrible_!" Riku groaned. "Mr. Wallace is a freaking psychopath! Well, I've got the same class, so I'll show you where it is."

"I have AP chem," Roxas grumbled. Riku grinned.

"Lucky. Ms. Crescent's really nice. Axel's got that class too." He turned and shouted "Axel!" across the crowded courtyard. Roxas resisted the urge to kill something.

Axel arrived in a flurry of tangled limbs and bright red hair, slinging an arm over Roxas' shoulders. "You called?" he asked, grinning.

"Roxas has AP chem first. Could you—?"

"—show the way? Sure! C'mon, Roxy!" As Axel dragged him away, Roxas decided that he did not like this school.

"Where's the band room?" Demyx asked, looking around.

Zexion groaned. "It's next to the AP psych room. I'll take you." He sounded thoroughly unhappy with the current situation.

"Okay! Lead the way!"

"Où est la salle de classe de français? La class d'AP lit?"

"Follow," Fuu said brusquely, turning to leave. Naminé squeaked and ran after her looking as though she'd been sentenced to the gallows.

Happily noting that they were alone, Riku offered his arm to Sora.

"Shall we, milady?"

Laughing, Sora socked him.

"So, what's this Mr. Wallace like?" he asked.

Riku grimaced. "He's horrible. Makes us run a mile every Monday and Friday and two every Wednesday. And don't even get me started on the three mile. He's pretty scary. Gaia, the man has a _metal arm_! Rumor has it that his arm doubles as a gun. Scariest man ever."

And then for Sora, something clicked. He _knew_ someone fitting that description.

"Uh, Riku?"

"Yeah?"

"His first name wouldn't happen to be Barret, would it?"

"Yep!" Riku nodded. "It's on his office door!"

There was silence, during which Sora seriously considered throwing himself into the darkness. Then Riku frowned.

"Wait. How did you know his first name?"

Sora whimpered.

* * *

As they entered the gym, Sora seriously considered making a break for it, running away to Wutai, moving into a little hut on the mountains, and living the celibate life of a hermit. If there was one thing he did not want, it was for Barret to recognize him. Because that would lead to an interrogation on Marlene's general well-being, which would be awkward. Instead, Barret probed to be so oblivious that he didn't notice Sora standing approximately six feet in front of him. Of course, since comparing Sora to Barret was a lot like comparing a gnat to a sequoia, it wasn't all that strange. Sora's momentary relief lasted until Barret decided that roll call would be a wonderful thing to do.

"Amami?"

"Here."

"Almasy?"

"Yo."

Sora rolled his eyes. Barret had never been good at alphabetizing.

"Strife?"

Sora gulped. "Here."

"Hara—" Barret paused mid-sentence, looked at the name he'd just read off, and gaped. Then he looked up. "Sora?"

Sora waved sheepishly. "Uh, um, hi, Uncle B—"

"Sora!" Barret cried joyously, enfolding Sora in a massive bear hug. Sora inwardly prayed that the darkness would take him soon. And the rest of the class watched, openmouthed, as their monstrous sadist of a teacher squeezed the life out of the new kid.

Riku's mouth fell open as he realized just why Sora knew their teacher's first name.

* * *

Roxas, once again, was not a happy camper. His poor, naïve older brother was all alone with a man—well, teenager—Roxas knew was up to no good, while he received the great privilege of being dragged through the halls by said evil teenager's tattooed delinquent friend. Who was, without a question, the ugliest person he had ever seen.

Just as Roxas thought this, his inner self retaliated by slamming the Great Big Frying Pan of Righteousness into his already abused brain.

_You moron!_ his inner self shrieked. _He's gorgeous! Look at those hips… just jump him already!_

And Roxas blushed, for he knew that this was true, and his eyes dropped unbidden to Axel's hips and chest, where they stayed.

Unfortunately, Axel did not notice this action. If he had, then he probably would have simply dragged Roxas into the nearest supply closet and had his way with him. But alas, poor Axel did not notice that Roxas' self-control was only a tiny bit more abuse away from snapping, and thus guaranteed himself even more work trying to win Roxas over. And so it was that poor, deprived Axel missed what could have been the greatest opportunity of his life because he was too busy babbling and enjoying the feel of Roxas' skin.

"So this is the science wing—that's Dr. Hojo's lab, don't go in there if you value your health and/or remaining limbs. The math wing's through those double doors off that way, and the Altar of Naught is right up those stairs."

Roxas gave Axel the looks doctors use when trying to figure out exactly what their patient is high off of.

Axel rolled his eyes. "Look, I didn't name it, okay? All the administrative offices are up there. Someone a very long time ago dubbed it the Altar of Naught and the name stuck."

Roxas raised an eyebrow. "The administrative offices are upstairs?"

"All except one."

"One?"

"Angeal—Mr. Hewley's. He's the guidance counselor here—well, there are more, but he's the most popular. He's a good guy and all, but they had to put his office on the first floor because of a little anomaly on his psychological evaluation."

"An—anomaly? What kind of an anomaly?"

Axel grinned. "Apparently, the man has—or had at one point—the overwhelming urge to throw people out of windows if they pissed him off."

"And they hired him?" Roxas squeaked.

"Oh, yeah. He's just been banned from the second floor. He has to send runners up there all the time if he wants to actually get anything done."

Roxas still looked vaguely ill. Axel laughed. "Don't worry, Roxy. He's never hurt anyone. The worst he'll do is dub you 'puppy' and hand you a chocolate bar."

Roxas' eye began to twitch. "Puppy?"

"Yeah, he does that to everyone. Nobody really knows why." He shrugged. "Probably just another anomaly on the psych test. Anyway," he said cheerily, "this is Ms. Crescent's room." He flung the door open and sauntered in, the usual shit-eating grin plastered to his face. Roxas followed him apprehensively—he'd developed a new wariness toward public educators.

He needn't have worried. Lucrecia Crescent was a smiling brunette woman in her late twenties or so, who was probably one of the kindest people Roxas had ever met. When Axel sauntered through the door waving like Miss Hollow Bastion, she burst into hysterical giggles and pointed at a chair in the back, which Axel took.

"I haven't seen you before," she said, walking over to Roxas. "Are you new this year?"

Roxas nodded. Lucrecia clapped her hands together excitedly and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. "Wonderful! I'm Ms. Crescent, resident sane chemistry teacher." Roxas blinked. "Trust me! Some of your poor classmates got Hojo for this class." She sighed and rested a hand on her cheek. "Poor souls."

"Is he really that bad?" Roxas asked worriedly. Lucrecia grinned at him, and turned to the rest of the class.

"Hey guys! What is the most important thing to remember in this class?"

The entire class exchanged manic grins, then, as one, recited, "Hojo is a slimy old bastard who deserves to be strangled, resurrected, burned at the stake, resurrected again, cloned, forced to watch his clones get decapitated, dismembered, resurrected one last time and dragged by his ears to the basement where a drunken janitor is waiting with a cactus and a croquet mallet."

"Amen to that!" yelled someone in the next room over.

Roxas shuddered. "He's that bad?"

"Yep. Now, where to seat you…"

"OOH!" Axel shrieked, jumping up and down, waving his arms excitedly.

Roxas and Lucrecia rolled their eyes. "Well, ah—what was your name?"

"Roxas."

"Well, Roxas, you can go sit with Axel at the back station. Just, ah, try to keep him away from the Bunsen burners, will you? Last year he set his desk on fire."

Feeling infinitely worse about his lot in life and infinitely surer he wasn't going to survive this, Roxas slumped down in the seat next to Axel.

"'ello, Roxy!" Axel said, grinning. He gestured at the boy he'd been talking to. "I'd like you to meet Xigbar. Xiggy, this is Roxy. Roxy, this Is Xiggy." Xigbar waved a lazy hello before turning around and striking up a spirited conversation with the empty chair next to him.

"Oh, don't worry about him," Axel said lazily, noting Roxas' look of worry and confusion. "He's just high. Don't ask me on what—no one knows. Could be Pixy Stix."

Roxas eyed Xigbar nervously. The other boy appeared to be arguing angrily with the aforementioned chair. "Does this happen a lot?"

Axel snorted. "Roxy, if there comes a day when Xiggy isn't stoned, then flee, for the end of all things is nigh."

"And no one cares?"

"Nope. Not at all. Well, a couple of the higher-ups do, but they've never actually caught him doing anything."

Up at the front of the room, Lucrecia clapped her hands.

"Settle down, everyone!" she called. "You too, Xigbar, I don't care what the chair said." Satisfied that everyone was watching, she sat down on the counter and continued. "Well, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Lucrecia Crescent. Nice to meet you all. And for those of you who had me last year, welcome back. And if you had Hojo last year, then," she frowned, "actually, AP Chemistry has never seen a Hojo survivor. They're all so traumatized they go into physics. Anyway, welcome to AP Chemistry."

As Lucrecia continued her speech, Axel found himself casting sidelong glances at Roxas. Roxas found himself doing the same. Their eyes met, and Axel smiled.

* * *

Demyx was in heaven. Band class was a glorious, glorious thing. The teacher—a redheaded woman who had told them to just call her Ariel—was one of the nicest people ever, and better yet, she knew what a sitar was.

"Okay, everyone! Settle down! Now, it's nice to welcome you all to a new year of band class. I don't actually have anything planned for us to do today, so how about we go around the room and you can play a piece or two for us?"

Demyx was sure he'd died and gone to heaven.

* * *

Zexion may have liked psychology as a topic, but he hated the class. It wasn't the curriculum that he hated; it was merely the room itself. Namely, its close proximity to the band room. The strains of bad music that came through the walls made him want to rip his hair out.

Needless to say, Zexion was not a happy camper.

Vexen, watching his class, choked back the urge to laugh out loud. Unbeknownst to his students, each year he specifically requested that his room be right next to the band class. He really, really liked watching his class suffer. Especially Zexion. He was just so expressive without meaning to be.

Although Vexen had never figured out why no one ever complained.

After the fifth drum solo, Zexion was about ready to scream, or throw a fit, or something. The noise was unbearable. He couldn't understand why it didn't bother anyone else. He nearly lost it when the class next door actually applauded the noisy maniac, and resisted the urge to slam his head into the desk and cry as the crashing began, indicating that someone else had knocked over a music stand on their way to the stage.

But what happened next was—to Zexion at least—shocking, but not entirely unwelcome. Instead of yet another horrific drum solo that would make his ears bleed for days, a low, slow song filtered into the room. It was almost classical, but not, and it didn't sound like any instrument he'd ever heard before. It wasn't like anything he was familiar with, but he immediately resolved to find out what it was. Looking around, the rest of the class appeared to be surprised as well, but—as Vexen noted with interest from the front of the room—no one had the same look of rapture as Zexion.

_What do you know? The kid actually has emotions._

Zexion silently vowed that if he ever learned who the musician next door was, he would kiss them.

Of course, at the time, he had no idea whom he'd just pledged to kiss.

* * *

Demyx, grinning like Sora abandoned in a candy store, bowed to the tumultuous applause from his classmates.

"Demyx, that was wonderful!" Ariel cried from the back of the room. "Did you compose that yourself?"

Demyx rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Yeah. I made it up last summer after my sisters burned down the doghouse."

At the ensuing dumbfounded stares, he blushed. "It was supposed to be a touching eulogy. Anyway, nearly getting my eyebrows and most of my hair singed off put me in the composing mood, I guess."

Ariel looked thoughtful. "Well, there's never been a sitar in the band lineup before—and if there had been it probably wouldn't have looked _quite_ like yours—but I suppose we'll have to give it a go, won't we, class?" The classroom erupted in cheers once more as a thoroughly embarrassed Demyx slunk back to his seat (although trying to slink with a gigantic instrument in tow was not the stealthiest action he'd ever performed).

Consequently, it was an incredibly happy Demyx who danced his way out of second period and nearly slammed directly into Zexion, who was waiting for him with his usual disgruntled expression.

"Well?" he asked, giving Demyx his best hell-freezing look. "What class do you have next?"

"Um," Demyx muttered, consulting the crumpled ball of paper that had once been his schedule, "English, I think. In room 420. That's what it looks like, anyway." Zexion rolled his eyes. Gaia, how could anyone be so stupid? Well, not quite stupid but—to quote Fuu—foolish?

"Come on," he snapped, striding briskly off toward the English classroom. "You're lucky I have the same class, otherwise…" he trailed off, realizing from the lack of response that Demyx wasn't really paying attention to him. He glanced back to see if Demyx was still following him—he was, but Demyx looked rather uncomfortable fighting his way through the crowded hallway. In fact—Zexion's eyes narrowed—when another boy slammed into his side, Demyx looked downright terrified.

Zexion frowned.

* * *

Once he had gotten over the rather nasty shock that Sora was on a first-name basis with The PE Teacher from Hell, Riku became rather sure that he had died and gone to heaven. IT seemed as though something good might come out of the whole "PE-class-first-thing-in-the-morning" travesty. For one glorious hour, he got be with Sora. A whole Roxas-free hour of Sora-related bliss.

"Well," he said cheerily to Sora, "maybe Wallace'll go a bit easier on us now that you're here."

Sora decided not to correct Riku on his rather erroneous assumption. The opposite was true. Now that he was there, things were going to get a whole lot worse for everyone involved. Years before, Barret had vowed to make sure that Sora, Roxas, and everyone else became as strong as Cloud. And since Cloud was probably capable of bench-pressing a musk ox if he so desired, this was no small feat. But, when Barret Wallace decided to do something, he did it. The only person capable of stopping him was probably Yuffie, so long as she had recently consumed about a ton of sugar. Or two.

Sora wasn't sure whether to laugh hysterically at Riku or hug the other boy and attempt to comfort him.

He settled for making a noise somewhere between a giggle, a groan, and a cough that made Riku look around in alarm and ask the boy next to him where the dying cat was.

* * *

Naminé stumbled out of the French classroom looking vaguely like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler. The French teacher was insane. She'd never seen anyone so drunk and yet still able to maintain most higher body functions. The man had a bizarre addiction to rum and parsley, which he kept getting confused with French verbs, which then degenerated into a shouting match between him and the whiteboard when, apparently, the markers had "mouthed off" to him.

Go figure.

Naminé looked around expectantly, but Fuu was nowhere in sight, and it didn't appear as though she were coming. Thus, poor little Naminé began to panic.

"Are you okay?" a girl's voice asked.

Naminé looked up. The voice belonged to a pretty auburn-haired girl. "Umm… I'm sort of lost. Fuu never showed up, and—"

The girl snorted. "Fuu? You entrusted your safety and well-being to her?" She rolled her eyes. "Fuu hates people—she doesn't really care much about anyone except herself."

Naminé flushed slightly. "Yeah. J'ai pensé que… I mean, I had a feeling she was like that."

The girl blinked in surprise. "You're French?"

Naminé shrugged. "Who knows?" At the girl's questioning look, she replied, "I'm adopted."

The girl nodded. "Ah. I'm Kairi, by the way."

"I'm Naminé."

"What's your next class?" Kairi asked. "I can help you find it, if you like." Naminé beamed at her and dug out her schedule.

"Let me see. Um, I have math in 504."

Kairi grinned. "I've got the same class. C'mon, I'll show you where it is."

To Naminé's sheer joy, the person standing at the front of the class (smiling serenely even as a paper airplane sailed past her head) was someone Naminé recognized instantly.

"Aunt Aerith!"

Aerith gave her a sunny smile. "Naminé! It's good to see you again!"

Kairi looked from Aerith to Naminé and then back again. "You two know each other?"

Aerith nodded. "Yes. I'm good friends with her father, actually. By the way, Naminé, how are you all adjusting?"

Naminé shuffled slightly. "It's going pretty well, I guess. Dad's happier than I've ever seen him, so that's good. Roxas is still a little pissy, and I keep hearing Demyx whining to be let back in at night, but everyone else is ecstatic most of the time. Rikku's even started teaching Kadaj Al Bhed. They've never taught it to anyone outside the family before. Although I suppose they are family now. Oh, and Denzel spray-painted all the roses in the backyard. It's all going rather smoothly, really.

"That's good to hear. Now, go ahead and sit wherever you like. Class will be staring soon."

"C'mon, Naminé!" Kairi exclaimed, seizing her by the wrist and dragging her to a table in the back of the room. "The back's always the best."

As Naminé sat down, Kairi turned to her. "I couldn't help overhearing what you said, about Kadaj and Riku. Were you talking about the Amamis?"

"Kadaj yes, Riku no. Spell it with two "k"s, and you get my little sister's name."

"Why is your sister friends with him? Kadaj is a little hellion."

Naminé rolled her eyes. "Ils sont… they are partners in crime. I have a feeling they're the ones responsible for gluing Riku's closet doors shut."

Kairi frowned. "If you just moved here, how do you know the Amamis so well?"

"I'm living with them."

Kairi fell out of her chair.

* * *

_Life, _Roxas thought bitterly, _is not worth it_.

After a fairly humiliating period of AP Chemistry in which Axel did everything possible to drive Roxas mad, Axel had seen fit to accompany him to his next class, which—as if Murphy wasn't having enough fun already—Axel had too. The only slight bit of satisfaction he was getting out of the whole mess was that he knew the teacher, and said teacher was not going to make life easy for Axel. Or Roxas, for that matter, but Roxas knew how to handle him.

At least, this would be the case if the person he was thinking of was the same as the one Axel was griping about. After all, how many people in the world could there be with the name _Valentine, V_?

Not many, as it turned out. Roxas knew he was right as soon as he and Axel walked into the room and realized it was nearly pitch-black.

"Roxas! Over here!"

Roxas turned, and made out a spiky-haired-kid-who-was-most-likely-Sora waving at him through the gloom. Next to him, Roxas noted with displeasure, was a silver-haired-bastard-named-Riku. He dropped into the seat next to Sora, smiling at Sora, glaring at Riku, and barely resisting the urge to deliberately maim Axel in various ways, some of which involved an endless loop of illegally downloaded music.

"How was chem?" Sora asked, oblivious to his twin's homicidal state.

"It was a unique experience," he hissed through clenched teeth.

"How was chem?" Riku asked Axel quietly as the redhead collapsed into the next seat.

"Amazing," Axel sighed happily. "Forget him being cute when he's angry. He's _gorgeous_."

Riku snorted. "Was that an honest attempt to seduce him, or did you just want to ogle."

"A bit of both."

Riku snorted. "Axel, what you call seduction the rest of us call an honest attempt at celibacy."

Axel pouted. "Meanie."

Riku stuck out his tongue. "You know it's true. How many boyfriends have you ever had?"

"Hey, cheap shot?" Axel yelped. "Just because you're one of the most popular kids at this school and people are throwing themselves at you doesn't mean you're qualified to judge!" He gestured vaguely at a group of giggling girls across the room who were obviously enamored with Riku. "See? They're infatuated with you and they've probably never spoken to you!"

Riku rolled his eyes. "It's because I'm an Amami. Rufus has it worse than I do."

Axel shook his head. "It still amazes me you're on a first-name basis with _Rufus Shinra_."

"It's called commiseration. We're both trying to forget our parents work for an evil empire. Well, actually, his dad runs the evil empire, mine just works for it."

"Shinra's based in Midgar."

"Dad heads the tech division. He still has to go to all the parties."

Axel shuddered. "Ugh. Suits. Can't say that sounds fun. But seriously, quit changing the topic!"

Riku sighed. "Axel, try not deliberately pissing him off. It might help."

"And how is Sora-seduction progressing?"

Riku shrugged. "He doesn't hate me. Better than Roxas, anyway. And I have a whole hour with him first thing in the morning." He grinned stupidly. PE. The administrators were gods on earth."

The administrators, Roxas thought grumpily, were not gods on earth. They'd given him classes with Axel. _Axel_! Not to mention that they'd put his naïve big brother alone in a class with Riku. The pervert.

"So," he asked Sora, grinning in an odd sort of way, "how was class?"

Sora smiled. "Pretty good, actually. Did you know Uncle Barret's teaching that class? I thought my ribs were going to snap from that bear hug."

There was silence. Then—"They gave that man a teaching license?!"

"He seems very concerned about Marlene."

"He's always concerned about Marlene, doofus."

"More so than usual. He seems to think the move has corrupted her innocent little mind in some way." Both snorted. Anyone who read Demyx's mangas—and knowing that Demyx was about as straight as a rainbow, it was rather obvious what these mangas were—could not be considered innocent in any sense of the word.

"Marlene's the brunette, right?" Riku asked, joining the conversation. "The one Kadaj is always staring at?"

"If you mean the girl he," here Sora made little air-quotes with his fingers, "kidnapped, then yes. You still don't know everyone's names?"

"I didn't know the kid had it in him," Axel mused. "Maybe I'm missing something here."

Sora rolled his eyes. "He didn't kidnap her, he just dragged her off to listen to him yammer incessantly about a Reunion while trying to convince the neighborhood kids to drink sewage."

"Ah," Axel nodded. "So my hypothesis is still valid."

"Hypothesis?" Roxas inquired—against his better judgment.

"That he's the gayest of us all," Axel said wisely.

Everyone else keeled over laughing.

"You just decided this?" Sora wheezed. "He wants a leather bodysuit for Christmas!"

"Are you going to get him one?" Axel asked, grinning.

Riku shrugged. "Who knows? If we get him one, Yazoo and Loz'll demand one each on top of that."

"Roxas grinned at the ridiculous mental image. "We should get him one when he's older. Make it more entertaining."

"What. His boyfriend's reaction?"

"Boyfriend? As if. Yazoo and Loz are a bit overprotective of him."

"Those two do whatever he says."

"Hey—"

"Axel, if you finish that thought I will make sure you never have children."

"I'm never going to have children anyway!"

"You know what I meant!"

"Attention," said a quiet voice from the front of the room.

They squinted through the gloom, and barely made out the silhouette of a man standing at the front of the room. "My name is Vincent Valentine, and I will be your English instructor this year."

Axel and Riku groaned. Sora and Roxas exchanged twin—pun completely intended—grins.

Vincent continued quietly, "Disruptions will not be tolerated in this classroom. And no cell phones. Infernal devices," he muttered. "We will begin the year with a reading of Dr. Yen Sid's Theories of the Light, the Dark, and the Nothing. An appropriate book for this school, considering that this book features its mascot quite prominently. After that, we will move on to more modern works, among them Professor Ansem's Studies of the Heart and Master Xehanort's Keyblade Wars." The class perked up considerably at the last title mentioned. Vincent chuckled. "I thought you might enjoy it. However, I expect you to work hard on everything in this class. Just because you don't like something it doesn't mean you can slack off."

There came a couple grumbles.

"Oh, and I can assure you most of you will hate me by the end of the year. Don't worry, I'm used to it."

Roxas sighed in bliss. This was what he wanted—a serious class, with work. And the fact that Vincent was teaching it? Even better.

Axel allowed his head to hit the desk. This was not good. Vincent Valentine was rumored to be the worst person to get for Junior English, and from the looks of things, those rumors were true. Including that one about him being a vampire—that one was definitely true. No ones eyes should be that red. Or glow-y. He glanced over at Roxas, and noted with a nasty shock that Roxas was staring at Vincent with a look akin to hero worship.

_Does he actually like this crap?_ Axel wondered.

"Now," Vincent continued, "I don't have anything for today, so this will be one of the few days that I allow you to wander around and chatter amongst yourselves. Don't do anything stupid."

And with a small, cynical grin (conveniently, it was too dark to see it), he reached behind his back… and flipped the light switch.

The entire classroom let out a strangled squawk as the lights seared thirty-some pairs of corneas.

Sora and Roxas winced, but smiled cheekily at Vincent as they got up from their seats and wandered off.

* * *

"FOOD!" Demyx cried happily, nearly throwing himself through the door to the lunchroom. Zexion followed, considerably more sedately. "Ooh, look! There's Sora and Roxas! Oh, and Riku! And Axel!" And thus, he seized Zexion's wrist in a vice grip and dragged him off across the cafeteria.

"Hey guys!" he chirped, flopping onto the bench next to Sora. "How was class?"

Sora and Roxas shrugged. "Not bad—"

"—but it's weird how—"

"—we know almost all of our teachers—"

"—here. Did you know that—"

"—Uncle Barret is teaching PE—"

"—and Uncle Vincent is teaching English?"

"Aunt Aerith is teaching math, too," Naminé announced, arriving on the scene with her lunch tray in tow. "C'est un peu… it's a bit odd. Oh! There's Kairi! Over here!" she called, waving across the room.

Kairi jogged over. "Hey, Naminé. Oh, hey Axel, Riku."

"This is Kairi," Naminé said brightly. "She's been showing me around ever since Fuu ditched me."

"She ditched you?" Sora asked. "Really?"

"Oui. Elle n'a pas… she didn't show up to show me to my second class, and Kairi bailed me out. Kairi, this is Sora and Roxas, my older brothers. And that's Demyx, my oldest brother. And I guess you know everyone else…"

Kairi grinned. "Yes, I know my big brother. Although sometimes I wish I didn't, he's a bit of a pain sometimes."

There was a pause.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I'M A PAIN?!" Axel bellowed, trying (and failing) to stand up. Kairi stuck out her tongue.

"Let me think. You're a pyro, you have no sense of self-preservation, you're an ass on the best of days, you enjoy pissing people off—by the way, Mom found out about you super-gluing her guns into the case and she's vowed to kill you—, and you're you. Do I need any more evidence?"

Riku snickered. "You forgot his penchant for picking locks.

"That I did. Thanks, Riku."

Axel shot Riku a wounded look.

Roxas looked blankly at Axel. "You super-glued your mom's guns into the gun case."

"Yep."

"Why," Roxas asked, "would you do something like that?"

"To keep her from using me for target practice."

"She uses you for target practice?"

"Not anymore!" Axel crowed triumphantly. "I super-glued all the safeties on!"

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Axel, you forgot about Dad's guns. You moron."

"_Shit_!" Axel screeched, going from cocky to terrified in less than half a second.

"Don't worry. Mom already promised to leave your vital organs intact. Although she neglected to mention anything about certain parts of your anatomy."

Axel whimpered. Riku gave him a sympathetic look. "Don't worry. You can hide out at my place. Your parents won't kill you if my dad's there."

"They'll get me somehow!" Axel wailed. "They'll send Reno in as a spy!"

"Reno?" Naminé asked Kairi.

"Our older brother. He's a Turk, like our parents. He's dating a Turk too. Try imagining Axel with a slightly different hairstyle, different tattoos, and eve less restraint or respect for common decency."

Naminé shuddered. "They're both like that?"

"Yep. Although I don't think Axel's going to become a Turk. He's a tad too gun-shy for that."

"Hell yes! I've been getting shot at since age three! It's a miracle I've never been grievously injured!"

"Good job, Axel!" Roxas said mockingly. "You used a big word!"

Amazingly, Axel ignored him. "I'm going to dieee!" He wailed, throwing himself underneath the lunch table.

Demyx giggled. Zexion rolled his eyes. "Axel, knock it off. Your parents aren't stupid enough to actually kill you."

"Exactly!" Axel wailed from underneath the table. "They're not stupid! They'll find a way to kill me and make it look like a tragic accident! They'll probably tie my hands behind my back and throw me to a pit of marlboroes!"

Demyx blinked. "I was under the impression that they were extinct."

"That's what they want you to think!" Axel screeched. "Shinra keeps a shitload of 'em in one of the R & D labs downtown!"

Sora blinked. "…Axel? Who told you this?"

"Riku did!"

Several pairs of accusing eyes turned to Riku. He raised his hands and backed up slightly. "Hey! Dad took me down and showed me! Said something about not trusting mad scientists."

"Speaking of mad scientists," Zexion muttered, "has anyone noticed Hojo giving us really creepy stares lately?"

Riku frowned. "Define weird."

"He appears to be disturbingly fascinated with my shoulder blades. I've seen him staring at yours and Fuu's too."

Riku shrugged. "He works for Shinra. How sane can he be?"

"Hojo's that evil guy Ms. Crescent was talking about, right?" Roxas asked.

"Evil doesn't even begin to cover it. The guys nuts!" Axel exclaimed (still under the table). "I heard once he uses freshmen in some really nasty experiments!"

Zexion rolled his eyes. "He does plenty of that at Shinra. I doubt he'd try it at a school."

"I dunno," Roxas muttered. "Ms. Crescent seemed to have a pretty big beef with him."

"She used to work for Shinra too," Riku told him. "Although I've heard she still does some specialty work for them when they really need her. Usually biomedical research, I've heard."

"How d'you know all this?" Sora asked, in his 'do you have any idea how cool you are?' voice. Riku smiled at him.

"Dad tells me a lot of things. Plus we all know Ms. Crescent pretty well. She and Ms. Gainsborough were like mothers to us back when…" he trailed off, staring at blank space over Sora's shoulder.

"I'm starved. Let's eat!" Demyx said brightly in the ensuing silence.

As everyone began to talk again and eat, Zexion said in a low undertone to Demyx, "thank you."

"Mmm?" Demyx hummed, turning to Zexion with half of a sandwich hanging out of his mouth.

"For changing the subject. That particular topic is something non of us like to talk about."

Demyx shrugged, cramming the sandwich down his throat (Zexion inwardly made a 'grossed-out' face). "It's nothing. Everyone has something they don't want to talk about."

"Even you?"

The sharp look in Demyx's eyes was the only answer he needed.

* * *

(gasp) (wheeze) (cough)

Voilà… c'est fini!

Actually, I think the proper translation of that statement is "it's dead". Should probably figure out how you actually say it.

Anyway, if anyone knows how to spell the plural of marlboro, that would be nice. (grin) Oh, and if anyone knows the official spelling of Barret (I've seen like fifteen different ways to spell it) that'd be lovely to know too.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that the whole Angeal-window-throwing thing WAS NOT MY IDEA. It came from a quote I found on someone's user page, and I thought it was cool. If anyone knows who came up with it, let me know so that I may properly credit them.

EDIT # 2: Geez, I need to read this better before I post it. And fix my french. I need to not go for random word-for-word translations. (groan) But the french has been fixed, and the typos have been fixed, and... (groan)

As always… leave a review so I know what you all thought!


	6. In Which Little is Actually Accomplished

Hello, dear readers, hello! Sorry about the wait for the last chapter—I wasn't particularly motivated then, but I am now! Unfortunately, this motivation brings plot bunnies, which I have had to sort through in order to finish this chapter.

In other news, I wrote much of this chapter with the soothing strains of Girugamesh pounding in my ears. And my entire house. As my mother so eloquently put it… "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE?!" But they're coming to SakuraCon this year! (squees) I'm so excited! But I really need to finish my costume soon, or I'll be in big trouble.

In yet _another_ random tidbit of news, I am finally capable of understanding and pronouncing the difference between Riku (リク) and Rikku (リック). In case you were wondering, yes, I do let my dork flag fly on occasion (aka all the time).

**Disclaimer:** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, then Sora and Riku (…and everyone else…) would be mine! …unfortunately, the cast is not mine. Therefore, Kingdom Hearts is not mine. I think I'm going to cry.

* * *

**Curiosity Killed the Cat—**

**Then Satisfaction Brought Him Back**

**(Curiosity, Satisfaction)**

Chapter 5: In Which Little is Actually Accomplished

Early one morning, young Roxas Strife awoke to the sounds of scratching and whimpering somewhere in the house. After a long, drawn out moan of "Zexioooon! Let me back in!" he realized it was Demyx. Again. He rolled his eyes. Demyx hadn't get made it through the night without getting kicked out at least once by a very peeved (and sleepy) Zexion. He sighed, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep.

His eyes shot wide open as he realized that instead of his pillow, he was snuggling into someone's chest.

The rest of the Amami-Strife household awoke to the combined sounds of screaming and someone being beaten by a heavy blunt object.

Snuggled in Sephiroth's arms, Cloud cracked one arm open slightly and groaned. "Again?" he muttered into Sephiroth's chest. Sephiroth chuckled.

"Like clockwork. I wonder if Zexion realizes that if he'd quit kicking Demyx out than there wouldn't be any yelling into a decent hour."

Cloud groaned. "I want to go back to sleep. I like being with you."

Sephiroth chuckled at Cloud's sleepy speech. He sounded like a six-year-old. He leaned down and lightly kissed Cloud's slightly parted lips. Cloud moaned happily, and fisted a hand in Sephiroth's hair. "C'mon, cloud. Let's go back to sleep. It's Saturday."

He could have sworn that Cloud chirped in contentment as he curled up once more against his side. He smiled. The kids could wait until later.

* * *

There are a few things in the world that only certain people can pull off successfully. For example, Roxas Strife was probably the only person on the planet who possessed the mental faculties required to, at four in the morning, beat his semi-brother's best friend soundly about the head and shoulders with his desk chair. Said semi-brother's best friend was, understandably, displeased.

"Ow! Roxas! Stop it!"

"If you want me to stop, then stop crawling into my bed!" Roxas shouted back, punctuating this statement with a particularly hard whack to Axel's rib cage. "Haven't I already made it clear that I do not want you sleeping in my bed—and especially not while I'm in it!"

Axel pouted at him. "Aww, Roxy, I don't remember you complaining last night."

"That's because I was asleep, dumbass!" Roxas shouted, doing his best to break a rib or ten. "Die, pervert!"

On opposite sides of the room, Sora and Riku sat up, yawned, and looked sleepily at the fight. Well, Sora did. Riku was slightly more preoccupied with Sora himself—who was currently clutching a battered moogle plushie to his chest. Inner Riku swooned.

"Roxas," Sora whined sleepily, "it's four in the morning. On a Saturday. Can we please go back to sleep?"

"No," Roxas replied, bringing the chair down once again. Axel yelped.

Riku rolled his eyes. "Roxas, please. You've done this every morning for the past two and a half weeks. Can we please go to sleep?"

Roxas glowered at him. "We can all go to sleep as soon as this pervert quits getting into my bed during the night!"

"I can't feel my legs," Axel whimpered. Roxas smirked evilly at him. Axel cowered.

_My god, he's gorgeous._ _Ow, that hurts. How many bones has he broken?_

A loud cry of "SHUT UP!" came from somewhere below them.

Sensing that Roxas and Riku weren't going to work things out for themselves, Sora and Riku decided to step in.

"Come on, Roxas," Sora pleaded, forcibly prying his twin's fingers from the chair, "go back to sleep. You can kill him in the morning."

At the same time, Riku dragged Axel back to his side of the room. "There. Now please, get back in your sleeping bag, and _stay there_!"

From across the room, Sora smiled at Riku and gave him a thumbs-up as Roxas, slightly mollified, crawled back into his Axel-free bed. Riku smiled back, and blushed.

* * *

Six hours later, the Amami-Strife household awoke once more, not to the screams of a teenager in pain, but to the smell of waffles. Of course, knowing the personalities of the teenagers in question, this was about as tranquil as the day ever got. The breakfast table was a scene of utter chaos. In addition to the small-scale war that had broken out over possession of the syrup, Axel and Demyx were doing their best to annoy Roxas and Zexion, respectively, without getting their spines shattered or being strangled with their own intestines, with limited success.

Yawning widely, Cloud staggered sleepily into the room, followed closely by an amused Sephiroth. "Mm, thanks, Marlene. That smells good. Where's the syrup?"

Marlene sighed and pointed at Kadaj, who held the bottle like a precious treasure. "He's got it. Good luck getting it from him—he fought tooth and nail for that thing, and I doubt he'll be giving it up anytime soon."

Cloud groaned. "Great. Another syrup hog. Ah well, there's still butter."

"Here," said Sephiroth, presenting him with the syrup. Behind them, Kadaj glared at Sephroth's back with something akin to righteous fury.

"Aw, thanks Seph!" Cloud crowed, standing on tiptoes to give Sephiroth a quick peck on the cheek. Most of the room gagged, except Demyx, who flashed a quick thumbs-up, and Marlene, who had such a strange grin on her face that Sephiroth was somewhat disturbed. "So," Cloud asked, sitting at the table and passing the syrup back to a rather surly Kadaj, "what are you planning on doing today?"

"Je vais sortir avec une amie—"

"English," the table groaned.

"I'm going out with a friend sometime this afternoon. And no, not that kind of going out," she said huffily.

"Riku was going to show me around the city," Sora said happily through a mouthful of waffle.

"I'm going too," Roxas said quickly, glowering at Axel (and completely forgetting about his own plans for the day). Sora and Riku deflated slightly.

"Well then, I guess I'll have to go too!" Axel said, looking like the cat who got the canary. Or in this case, the seme who finally saw the chance to corner his poor clueless uke.

Roxas groaned. Sora grinned. Axel had the subtlety of an atomic bomb where Roxas was concerned.

"By the way," Roxas said loudly—Kadaj had begun squalling at Loz over the butter—"I'm spending the night at Hayner's with him and Pence. And no, Axel, you are not invited." He seemed somewhat displeased about this realization, perhaps realizing that this meant he couldn't follow Sora and Riku.

"Hayner?" Sephiroth asked curiously. "Isn't that the kid who—"

"—hates my guys, yeah," Riku finished. "Dunno what I ever did to him, but I still think it's Fuu's fault."

"How?" Fuu snapped.

"You're friends with Seifer. Who Hayner hates—"

"—ten bucks says they'll be sucking face by the end of the year," Demyx muttered to Sora.

"You are so on."

"—and you're my sister. You do the math."

"Not math," Fuu replied dismissively. Riku slammed his forehead into the table.

"Expression, Fuu."

Denzel kicked Kadaj for no apparent reason.

Cloud's pleased waffle-smile became a pained grimace as Rikku, giggling madly, hit him in the forehead with a large square of syrup-covered waffle. Sephiroth couldn't suppress his own chuckles, until Yuna hit him in the nose with a syrupy waffle. He and Cloud exchanged long-suffering looks, before turning back to the triplets with matching conspiratorial grins.

Sora paled. "Um, guys? We should probably take cover."

* * *

Hayner, Pence, and Olette hadn't been quite sure what to expect when they went to meet one Roxas Strife. When they had proposed going to the bailey and perhaps getting some sea-salt ice cream, Roxas had agreed, given his address to Hayner, and asked to meet them the next morning. Since none of them had immediately recognized the address, they hadn't known quite what to expect when they knocked on the door of the Strife home. Of all the possible scenarios they had imagined as Olette knocked on the door of the pristine three-story mansion; a grinning, syrup-coated, spiky-blond-haired man answering the door had not been one of them. He'd stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking, before turning and bellowing "ROXAS!" over his shoulder. When Roxas failed to appear, the man shrugged. "He must be changing. Why don't you three come inside? He shouldn't be too long."

Sharing looks of trepidation, the three stepped inside. "Um," Olette squeaked, "who are you, exactly?"

The man grinned. "The name's Cloud. I'm Roxas' dad. Paine, put that down! Honey, I thought you'd tied them up!"

Pence's eyebrows met the roof when a distinctly masculine voice replied, "Cloud, dear, these aren't children. They're little Houdini-demons in the shape of children. Paine, please give me the syrup."

Hayner elbowed Pence. "You think we've entered the Twilight Zone?"

"Oh, stop it you two," Olette hissed. "They're just trying to get syrup away from a small child. Nothing strange there."

Olette's eyes nearly fell out of her head as a damp, shirtless Riku Amami – clad only in a towel – came down the stairs. "Dad?" he called. "Is it safe?"

There was a loud splat, and Riku cringed. "No," the masculine voice from before replied. "It most certainly is not."

Olette gulped, before muttering to Hayner, "Okay. You were right."

Riku, perhaps sensing the drooling girl fifteen feet to his left, turned to look at them, sighed, and bellowed "ROXAS!" up the stairs.

"What do you want now?" Roxas' voice yelled back. "Dammit, Axel, would you leave me alone for once?"

"Your friends are here!"

"What?" Roxas appeared at the top of the stairs. "Oh, hi guys."

"Umm… are you ready to go?" Hayner asked, feeling inexplicably stupid.

* * *

They made it about a block before Hayner brought it up. "Um, dude? Was that really your house back there?"

Roxas blinked. "Yeah. Something wrong?"

"Why didn't you mention you were living with the Amamis?" Olette all but squealed.

"Is it such a big deal?"

"Duh," Pence said, shrugging. "The Amamis are only some of the most famous and influential people in the city!"

"They're really that big?" Roxas asked, slowing down as he contemplated this new information.

"Yeah. Mr. Amami is a bigwig director for this branch of the Shinra Corporation. Mrs. Amami supposedly worked there too."

Roxas paused. "Mrs. Amami? Do you know anything about her?"

Olette nodded. "Not much, though, just that she died about six years ago. No one really knows why, they hushed it up really quickly. I don't blame them for not wanting the news of her death spread all over the place. There's been speculation that she had an accident at work, but I don't think that's what happened. Anyone watching the Amamis closely would have seen that they all became pretty depressed about a year before she died. I bet it was some type of cancer or something."

"Anyway," Hayner asked, "why are you living with them?"

"The Amamis? My dad's dating Sephiroth Amami."

There was a pause. Olette punched the air. "I knew it! He is bi!"

Roxas blinked. "You couldn't tell? Did you not notice the flowing silver hair?"

"Hey! No one ever had any conformation, okay? Hey, Scrooge's is just up ahead. What kind of ice cream do you like?"

* * *

Sora, contrary to what most people believed, was not a complete ditz. Sure, he had his moments, but that didn't mean he was stupid. Sora knew what he liked, and sexy silver-haired males named Riku were definitely high on that list. Sure, Riku would probably never like him like _that_, but he wasn't going to complain if Riku kept up the silly friendship flirting.

Unbeknownst to Sora, Riku was actually doing everything except propositioning him outright. Of course, Riku had only managed to maintain this shred of self-control because the rational part of his brain had bitch-slapped his libido into submission. For someone who had basically coined the motto "take what you can, give nothing back," this was no small feat. Of course, reason couldn't conquer everything – Riku had to continually remind himself not to walk behind Sora (for obvious reasons).

"You ready to go?" he called, leaning against the doorframe. Sora looked up and smiled.

"Yeah, just a second," he said, clasping his ever-present crown necklace around his neck. Riku swallowed reflexively as he stared at the pendant resting at the hollow of Sora's lightly-tanned throat and oh god, this had to be illegal somewhere.

"So, what do you want to do today, fair maiden?" Riku asked jokingly as he and Sora stepped out into the bright sunshine (they had, of course, told Axel that he was _not_ to follow them under pain of Roxas).

Sora shrugged. "Dunno. What do you city kids do for fun around here?" he asked, smirking.

"You name it. There are sports centers and arcades scattered everywhere. There's even an ice rink next door to the dog park." He knew he'd said the right thing when Sora's eyes lit up.

"Dog park?"

"Yeah. It's pretty big, with a nice little lake and some kid's playtoys. Just like any other park in the city, only it doesn't have a leash law."

"Really? Can we go? Please? Aero'd love it!" he begged.

Riku grinned and ruffled his hair. _Too cute. _"Sure thing."

Sora scampered off around the side of the house. "Aero! Here boy!"

* * *

"Hey, Zexy?" Demyx called, briefly glancing up from his desk.

Zexion, seated on his bed with his ever-present "Book of Boringness" (as Demyx had lovingly dubbed it) said nothing.

"Zexy?" Demyx asked again, when Zexion said nothing. "Zeeexyyy… hey, Zexy?"

Zexion looked up and glared frostily. "If you need something from me, please use my name. Unless it's too long for your brain to comprehend."

Demyx stuck out his tongue. "Whatever, _Zexion_. What's the definition of burlesque?"

"You need me for _that_? Use a dictionary and look it up yourself!"

Demyx pouted. "But asking you is faster! You know everything!"

Zexion sighed. "Not everything. I find it quite vexing, actually. It means switching perception and action for satirical purposes."

Demyx groaned. "English, Zexy, English."

Zexion twitched, but let the nickname go. "Fine. I'll put it in simpler terms. Pick two completely opposite people."

Demyx grinned. "Okay, me and you!"

Zexion sighed. "Very well, then. Now, how do you expect each person to act?"

"Geez, you're so impersonal! Anyway, I'm… well, Dad said 'neurotic' once, so I guess I'll go with that. And you… you're cold."

"Now swap those. Imagine if I behaved like you – perish the thought – and you behaved like me. That's burlesque."

"Thanks, Zexy!" Demyx crowed. "My hero!"

_I'm… cold?_

Zexion, grateful for the (temporary) silence, resumed his reading.

"Hey, Zexy? What's the formula for glucose?"

"C6H1206," he replied with out thinking. "Wait – what does that have to do with our English homework?"

Demyx grinned cheekily. "Nothing at all. I just wanted to see if you'd answer."

Zexion groaned and went back to reading.

* * *

Naminé knew that Fuu did not much like her. Naminé was also quite terrified of Fuu. Thus, when Fuu entered their – her – room, with Seifer and Rai in tow, she seized her sketchbook and pencils and all but sprinted from the room at a speed that would shame Sora on Pixy Stix. It took her a bit of time to find a place to draw – it seemed like the house was crawling with noisy, psychopathic preteens – before she sat on the living room couch and resumed her earlier activity.

It was at that moment that the door swung open and hit the wall with a loud bang. Naminé jumped. A short (though still quite a bit taller than Naminé herself) blonde with strangely gelled hair stalked through. And boy, did she look mad.

"Axel!" she bellowed. "I know you're here! Now come here before I have to find you!"

She began to mutter to herself. Naminé was pretty sure she heard the word 'castration' at least fifteen different times.

"Ah, si vous cherchez Axel, je crois qu'il est au deuxième étage. S'il n'a pas echappé du fenetre," she said timidly. The girl spun around. _Um, if you're looking for Axel, I believe he's on the third floor. If he hasn't escaped through the window._

"S'il a echappé, je vais le trouver," she said with an air of finality. "Et après, je vais le tuer." _If he escaped, I'm going to find him. And then, I'm going to kill him._

Naminé gaped. "Vous – vous parlez français?" _You – you speak French?_

The girl shrugged. "Un peu. Ta famille ne le parle pas?" _A bit. Your family doesn't speak it?_

Naminé shook her head. "Non. C'est très énervant." _No. It's really annoying._

"Merci pour l'information. Quelle chambre?" _Thanks for the information. Which room?_

"Probablement, c'est la chambre du Riku, Sora, et Roxas. C'est la première porte à gauche." _Probably, it's Riku, Sora, and Roxas' bedroom. It's the first door on the left._

The girl studied her for a moment. "Est-ce que le français est ta première langue?" _Is French your first language?_

"Je ne sais pas. Je suis adoptive, moi." _I don't know. I'm adopted._

The girl nodded, walked a few steps toward the stairs, spun around, leveled a finger dramatically in Naminé's direction, and bellowed, "Cette maison est des Amami! Pourquoi tu es ici? Comment t'appelles-tu?" _This is the Amami's house! Why are you here! What's your name?_

Naminé giggled. "Moi, je m'appelle Naminé. Naminé Strife. Et oui, j'habite ici. Et vous?" _My name is Naminé. And yes, I live here. And you?_

The girl gaped like a fish out of water. "Moi, je m'appelle Larxene Harada. Mais… pourquoi tu habites ici?" _My name is Larxene Harada. But… why are you living here?_

Naminé blushed. "Mon père, il est… _avec_ Monsieur Amami." _My father, he's… _with_ Mr. Amami._

Larxene was about to protest this new information, when Cloud and Sephiroth (still covered in syrup) marched in from the kitchen, carrying the trussed-up, syrupy triplets.

"Um, Seph? Why are we going to the garage?"

Sephiroth smirked. "I keep a pressure-washer in there. These three aren't going to get the chance to make the bathroom sticky."

"My hero," Cloud said dryly.

"I love you too," Sephiroth replied, kissing him on the forehead.

Larxene watched this with an open mouth and almost-crossed eyes. She finally turned back to Naminé, who smiled serenely. "Donc… tu dis la vérité." _So… you're telling the truth._

Naminé nodded. Larxene crossed the room and sat down next to her. Naminé squeaked. "Calmes – toi." Larxene said dryly. "Je suis fatiguée, et peut-être Axel va penser que je suis partie. Donc, qu'est-ce que tu fais?" _Calm down. I'm tired, and maybe Axel will think that I've left. So, what are you doing?_

* * *

Axel, as it turned out, had heard the dulcet tones of Larxene vowing to murder him. As per Naminé's prediction, he had in fact snuck out Riku's bedroom window. It hadn't been his most graceful escape – the fear caused him to slip and fall the last five feet – but it accomplished his purpose. Now to find Roxas, which could prove to be rather difficult. Hollow Bastion was a rather large city. He just had to hope his Seme Senses began tingling soon.

* * *

I'm _sorryyyyyy!_

Actually, I really have no excuse. I must simply submit this chapter and hope that none of you decapitate me with flaming chainsaws for being so bad about updating. I would have made this longer, but then it would have gotten out of control and then you'd all have to wait longer for an update. I'm sorry nothing plot-worthy actually happened, this is one of those "getting everyone where they need to be" chapters.

Another apology – this fic has sort of become my pairing dumping ground. I'm sort of expecting that no one has a problem with shoujo-ai – after all, you're reading this fic. I'll make sure to sort out all of the romantic loose ends.

I'd like to mention something about the French used in this chapter. I used the English expression "with" (as in dating) because I couldn't find a verb for "to go out with" or "to date" that didn't involve actual dating... like on calendars and stuff, not in the romantic sense of the word. If anyone knows the correct expression, please let me know and I'll revise it. Likewise, if I've screwed up a verb tense or something, let me know. I almost forgot to translate their conversation... but good thing I remembered, since I bet you all would have killed me.

As always, let me know what you thought! Do I need more fluff? More plot? Let me know! I'm drowning in writing assignments here, so it's hard to keep everything straight. Come to think of it, I really should be working on that satire paper...

One last thing – a big thank-you to all my friends and lunch-buddies who have been nagging me for weeks (in some cases _months_) to update this. I never would have gotten this much done without you all bugging me to write!

See you all at Sakura-Con if you happen to be going!


End file.
